Pain management in veterinary patients

The veterinary practitioner has an ethical obligation to help alleviate animal pain. Although most veterinarians accept the fact that animals feel pain, still, postoperative pain relief is not a routine practice in all veterinary hospitals and clinics today. Nociception is a physiological process which involves transduction, transmission, modulation and perception of the noxious stimuli. Chemical mediators are important components of the nociceptive reflex and offer a target of pharmacologic modulation. Assessment of pain in animals is the most important step in the successful management of pain. Choosing appropriate method of pain control would depend upon the type of procedure followed, severity of pain and economic considerations for each individual circumstance. Our understanding of the pain in its manifestation, mechanisms, assessment and alleviation in animals is still although improving, limited. [Vet World 2009; 2(9.000): 360-363]