Non-Opioid-Based Approaches to Burn Pain

Burn pain is almost always acute, and treatment strategies are often on the opposite end of the spectrum from chronic pain. However, many of the techniques developed for chronic pain can be useful for burn pain, particularly when the problem involves characteristics of both. The cognitive styles that patients bring to burn care and the manner in which they interpret nociception provide a rich source of intervention strategies. Learning theory can be extremely useful in pain control, particularly if such principles are structured into the overall manner in which care is provided (e.g., medication schedules and therapy approaches). Because patients in the burn unit often undergo significant distress, less conventional approaches such as hypnosis may assume a legitimate role. Finally, the needs of children have been neglected in the burn pain literature, and efforts on adjunctive techniques should also consider this population.