Classification of SCI Pain

Siddall et al. (1997) noted that one of the concerns regarding SCI-related pain was a lack of consensus over a classification system for SCI pain. This has led to considerable variation in incidence and prevalence rates for pain post SCI depending on the classification system used. Twenty-eight classification schemes have been published between 1947 and 2000. A Task Force on Pain Following Spinal Cord Injury of the International Association for the Study of Pain has introduced a taxonomy, which classified SCI pain based on presumed etiology (Burchiel & Hsu 2001; Siddall et al. 2000). Recently, an international group of clinicians and researchers developed a consensus for an SCI pain classification, International Spinal Cord Injury Pain Classification (ISCIP Classification). The overall structure of the ISCIP classification is similar to that developed by the previous IASP classification of pain related to SCI. However, the new system has merged and improved on previously published SCI classification systems. The ISCIP classification incorporates common pain pathology after SCI even those not necessarily related to SCI itself (Bryce et al. 2012).