Referred pain is felt in a skin area that shares a spinal nerve root with the affected organ; a region of skin supplied by a single spinal nerve root is called a dermatome.
Missing Word
dermatome
A dermatome is the area of skin supplied by one spinal nerve root. Overlap among dermatomes and shared nerve pathways explain why pain from an organ, such as the heart, can be felt in a distant area such as the shoulder.
Category: Types of Pain
Question 2
In the RICE approach to a sprained ankle, raising the injured limb above the level of the heart is called elevation.
Missing Word
elevation
Elevation uses gravity to help fluid drain from the injured area, which limits swelling and pain. It is paired with rest, ice, and compression right after a mild to moderate soft tissue injury.
Category: Nonpharmacologic Measures
Question 3
A therapy that a patient chooses in place of prescribed pain medication, rather than alongside it, is called an alternative therapy.
Missing Word
alternative
An alternative therapy replaces pharmacologic pain management, while a complementary therapy is used together with it. The nurse helps patients weigh the benefits and risks of each and reminds them not to stop prescribed medicines without talking to the provider.
Category: Nonpharmacologic Measures
Question 4
In acupuncture, thin needles are inserted at specific points on the body to relieve pain.
Missing Word
acupuncture
Acupuncture comes from traditional Chinese medicine and is used for arthritis, back and neck pain, headaches, and other conditions. Because it punctures the skin, patients taking anticoagulants need caution and should tell the practitioner.
Category: Nonpharmacologic Measures
Question 5
Asking a patient to picture a calm, pleasant scene in rich detail to draw attention away from pain is a mind-body technique called guided imagery.
Missing Word
imagery
Guided imagery uses pleasant mental pictures to promote relaxation and shift attention away from pain. It is a complementary measure used alongside prescribed pain treatment, not in place of it.
Category: Nonpharmacologic Measures
Question 6
The clinical term for using cold, such as an ice pack, to narrow blood vessels and numb nerve endings for pain relief is cryotherapy.
Missing Word
cryotherapy
Cryotherapy relieves pain by constricting blood vessels, which limits swelling, and by slowing nerve conduction. It is most useful right after an acute injury, and the pack is wrapped so it never touches the skin directly.
Category: Nonpharmacologic Measures
Question 7
In the FLACC scale for young children, how easily a crying child can be comforted by touch, holding, or talking is scored as consolability.
Missing Word
consolability
Consolability is the last of the behaviors the FLACC scale rates, along with face, legs, activity, and cry. A child in pain is harder to comfort, so poor consolability raises the score.
Category: Choosing a Pain Tool
Question 8
Inhaling or applying essential oils from plants such as lavender or peppermint to ease pain and anxiety is called aromatherapy.
Missing Word
aromatherapy
Aromatherapy uses plant oils by inhalation or on the skin, and studies link it with less pain, anxiety, and stress and better sleep. The nurse still checks for skin sensitivity and patient preference.
Category: Nonpharmacologic Measures
Question 9
Expecting the worst about pain, dwelling on it, and feeling helpless to control it is a thought pattern called catastrophizing, which tends to magnify pain.
Missing Word
catastrophizing
Catastrophizing is linked to more intense pain and greater disability. Cognitive behavioral approaches help the patient notice these thoughts and replace them with more balanced ones, which can lessen the pain experience.
Category: Pain Assessment Skills
Question 10
The most severe form of substance use disorder, marked by continued use despite harmful consequences, is called addiction.
Missing Word
addiction
Addiction is a medical disease, not a character flaw. Nurses use person-first, nonjudgmental language and still provide adequate pain management for patients with a substance use disorder.
Category: Special Populations
Question 11
Giving a placebo, an inactive substance such as a saline injection, to decide whether a patient's pain is real is deceptive and is not accepted practice, because pain is whatever the patient says it is.
Missing Word
placebo
A placebo has no active drug, and a response to it does not show that pain is fake, since expectation can change how pain is felt. Pain-management nursing standards reject placebos for assessing or treating pain outside approved research, because the deception harms trust and leaves pain untreated.
Category: Pain Assessment Skills
Question 12
Pain that comes from damage to tissues such as skin, muscle, bone, or organs, rather than from nerve damage, is called nociceptive pain.
Missing Word
nociceptive
Nociceptive pain begins when sensory receptors respond to tissue injury; it includes somatic pain from skin, muscle, and bone and visceral pain from organs. Neuropathic pain, by contrast, comes from damage to the nervous system itself.
Category: Types of Pain
Question 13
On a patient-controlled analgesia pump, the lockout interval is the preset time after each dose during which further button presses deliver no more drug, which helps prevent an overdose.
Missing Word
lockout
The lockout interval is programmed into the pump so the patient cannot receive another dose until the last one has had time to take effect. It is one reason the patient alone should press the button and why the nurse verifies pump settings.
Category: Barriers and Safety
Question 14
A trance-like state of focused attention that is used to heighten awareness of feelings and sensations and to ease pain is hypnosis.
Missing Word
hypnosis
Hypnosis is a relaxation technique in the mind-body group. It is one of several options, along with guided imagery and meditation, that patients can choose to lessen their perception of pain.
Category: Nonpharmacologic Measures
Question 15
In the COLDSPA pain assessment, the C stands for character, the way the patient describes how the pain feels, such as sharp, dull, burning or throbbing.
Missing Word
character
Character describes the quality of the pain in the patient's own words. It helps the nurse classify the pain, since burning or shooting pain suggests nerve involvement while aching or throbbing pain is more typical of tissue injury, and that guides treatment.
Category: Pain Assessment Skills