[Symposium on the indications of surgery in chronic upper limb pain]

Chronic pain is a true disease with neuromuscular and psychosocial features. It affects the individual as a whole. The consultation should not be limited to a physical approach and the clinician should not shelter behind useless investigations. It is necessary to listen to the patient, to seek elements of catastrophism and hypervigilance, to unmask a strategy of avoidance, and to evaluate the socioprofessional context. Psychosocial factors are the determinant ones in chronicisation of the pain and therefore are the ones that have to be addressed in the process of treatment and professional reintegration. The place of surgery is limited to the treatment of a trigger point (starting factor) and only when it is actually causing real symptoms and when surgical treatment will lead to regression of all the symptoms. On the whole though, the signs are never localised and we find a diffuse hypersensitivity with secondary dysfunction of the whole upper limb, functional exclusion, features of deconditioning, and all in an unfavourable psychosocial context. Thus, the assessment must be multidisciplinary and ideally the treatment should be managed in a centre of rehabilitation.