Using screening tools to identify neuropathic pain

It is widely accepted that the unique painful and non-painful sensations in neuropathic pain are the result of particular mechanisms, and that specific management strategies for neuropathic pain should be applied to tackle them. Ideally, the treatment of chronic pain should be directed at eliminating the cause of pain, but in reality this is rarely possible. The management of chronic pain is therefore often limited to reducing the intensity of such pain and associated symptoms. Pain is essentially a subjective phenomenon described with patient-specific symptoms and expressed with a certain intensity. It therefore makes sense to examine the value of verbal descriptors and pain qualities as a basis for distinguishing neuropathic pain from other types of chronic pain. Work by Dubuisson and Melzack (1976) and later by Boureau et al. (1990) supported anecdotal opinion that key words might be discriminatory for neuropathic pain. In the last 5 years, much research has been undertaken to develop screening tools for this purpose. These tools are based on verbal pain description with, or without, limited bedside testing. This paper reviews the strengths and weaknesses of such tools.