Category: Pain

The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) describes pain as ‘an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage’(1). Although the association between tissue damage and pain is central to this definition, it also takes into account the fact that pain is […]

In the majority of medicolegal cases, the outcome is dependent on the opinions expressed in experts’ reports. Therefore, these must be based on high quality evidence, particularly in cases where the questions surrounding breach of duty, causation and the damage sustained by the claimant are complex. Furthermore, once a case has gone to court, it […]

In medicolegal cases, it is rare for the legal teams involved to have sufficient specialist knowledge to make a judgement on the medical issues raised by a case. Therefore, they rely on medical experts to provide them with advice. It is the duty of the medical expert to provide the court with an objective and […]

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and fibromyalgia (FM) are common chronic pain syndromes. Both are characterised by extreme pain but while CRPS affects only one region of the body, in FM the pain is widespread throughout the body. Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) although there is some dispute as to […]

Conditions such as chronic pain can be extremely complex and may require input from a number of different specialties in order to diagnose patients and provide effective treatments. As a result, there has been an increase in the use of multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) in the management of patients with pain. However, the expertise on offer […]

On 14 May, Dr Jenner ran a very popular webinar on “CRPS: Psychological or Physical?” During the webinar he explored the symptoms and challenges of diagnosing CRPS, the particular medicolegal challenges posed by the conditions and also his opinion regarding the extent to which CRPS should be defined as a psychological rather than physical condition. […]

Although fibromyalgia (FM) is now widely accepted, there is still no definitive diagnostic test for the condition and the causes are not yet fully understood. Therefore, the condition presents several challenges in the medicolegal field. These are chiefly focussed around diagnosis, establishing causation and whether the symptoms reported are severe enough to cause significant disablement (1). […]

Dr Ramos-Galvez discusses a case study involving opioid addiction resulting from minor surgery

Dr Chris Jenner, leading pain expert and experienced expert witness, invites you to join his complimentary webinar on fibromyalgia. He will be discussing in some depth the medicolegal challenges presented by cases involving fibromyalgia, as well as exploring the correlation between trauma and fibromyalgia and carrying out a systematic review of the clinical literature on […]

In our latest video series, Dr Ivan Ramos-Galvez talks about fibromyalgia and how it is diagnosed, before moving on (in his second video) to discuss the medico legal challenges of a fibromyalgia diagnosis. What is fibromyalgia? What are the medicolegal challenges of a fibromyalgia diagnosis? To discuss and instruct Dr Ramos-Galvez on a fibromyalgia, or […]

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and fibromyalgia (FM) are both chronic pain conditions, but whereas CRPS is restricted to one specific area of the body, FM is characterised by widespread pain. Neither condition is well-understood in terms of causation, and diagnosis is based on subjective reporting of signs and symptoms by the sufferer. However, research is […]

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a relatively common pain syndrome and affects around 3-5% of the population. It is much more frequent in women than men, and is more prevalent than other pain conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. The main features of the disease are widespread pain and chronic fatigue. There is no known cause for FM […]