PAIN MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENTS Essay Example

44-75 mm where moderate pain is experienced; and 75-100 mm where patients undergo severe back pains. This instrument is advantageous since no special skills are required (Crichton, 2001). A patient is only required to be capable of using a ruler in measurements.

A dolorimeter is a pain measurement tool invented in 1940 by Helen Goodell, Harold Wolff, and James Hardy. In doing this, their main objective was developing a scale to be used by scientists in measurement of pain. At first, they agreed on the word “dol” a unit to use in pain measurement. This unit of measurement was derived from the term dolor, a word given to pain in Latin. After that, they came with a scale of measuring pain; ranging from 0 up to 10.5 dols. Each half of a dol signified a small change in pain (Sokka, 2003).

Before officially revealing this instrument, the three scientists required several participants to use in testing whether it was working or not. Four people volunteered to have these tests done on them. They were then subjected to many painful experiences of different degrees by use of different torture objects. They were either burned lightly in their skins, pierced with sharp objects, or swatted by use of blunt objects. Following the research findings obtained in the first tests, the scientists proceeded with their work by recruiting several medical students who then went on to cause torture on one another by burning their hands, arms and foreheads (Sokka, 2003). These two measurements were enough in establishing the efficiency of a dolorimeter in pain measurement. After this test, the scientists went forth and thought of focusing on the scale reading

in the case where a person was sleeping, dreaming of all sorts of beautiful things in this world. Lastly, their research focused on a group of delivering women, by trying to measure the intensity of pain they went through while giving birth. During this time, it was established that a dolorimeter was efficient in measuring the intensity of pain experienced in all body parts. It was in most cases used in the measurement of back pains (Sokka, 2003). The amount of pain experienced was grouped according to the dol’s 0-10.5 scale.