Persistent pain management for improved quality of life.

Persistent pain may arise from a variety of disease states or may not be associated with any obvious pathology. Persistent pain affects almost every aspect of a patient's life, drastically affecting quality of life. Treatment strategies must be individually tailored to the patient to address all manifestations of the patient's suffering. To provide better care for patients with persistent pain, health care providers should educate themselves about the distinctions among addiction, physical dependence, pseudoaddiction, tolerance, and pseudotolerance.