Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a chronic progressive disease characterized by severe pain, swelling and changes in the skin. The International Association for the Study of Pain has divided CRPS into two types based on the presence of nerve lesion following the injury.
The cause of this syndrome is currently unknown. Precipitating factors include injury and surgery, although there are documented cases that have no demonstrable injury to ...
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Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a chronic progressive disease characterized by severe pain, swelling and changes in the skin. The International Association for the Study of Pain has divided CRPS into two types based on the presence of nerve lesion following the injury.
The cause of this syndrome is currently unknown. Precipitating factors include injury and surgery, although there are documented cases that have no demonstrable injury to the original site.
The condition currently known as CRPS was originally described by Silas Weir Mitchell during the American Civil War, who is sometimes also credited with inventing the name "causalgia." However, this term was actually coined by Mitchell's friend Robley Dunglison from the Greek words for heat and for pain. In the 1940s, the term reflex sympathetic dystrophy came into use to describe this condition, based on the theory that sympathetic hyperactivity was involved in the pathophysiology. Misuse of the terms, as well as doubts...
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