Professional responsibility, “good practice and malpractice” in obstetrics is one of the major areas of medical-legal litigation.
This book aims to introduce veterinary surgeons to a new concept of pain for a better understanding of what pain is and how it occurs. By describing pain pathways and their regulation, as well as the sophisticated therapeutic systems that are currently being developed, this book shows its readers how to interpret pain, and how to identify it as a pathology in itself and treat it as such. The management of chronic pain in companion animals is an area in which there is a significant therapeutic void. In many cases, professionals are unaware of the appropriate approach to managing chronic pain, despite the wide range of pharmacological, surgical, and physical therapy options that act directly on the pain pathways.
This book deals with pain in companion animals and how it affects their welfare, health and, of course, behaviour. It describes the difficulties encountered, throughout history, to finally reach the conclusion that animals and humans share the same neurophy- siological mechanisms to feel pain, and what their sensitive pathways are. It then goes deeper into the changes that pain can cause in the behaviour of dogs and cats and the tools available to the veterinary surgeon to control it. Good veterinary practice and professional ethics lead us to try to reduce pain in animals as much as possible. Having a book such as this one can help us achieve this objective.
