[Pain diagnosis and pain measurement. II. Clinical aspects]

Experimental methods differ from clinical methods for the measurement of pain. Some developments in both areas, clinical and experimental pain investigation, are presented. The measurement of pain, i.e. its quantification, should not be confused with pain diagnosis. Some advantages of visual analogue scales in the measurement of clinical pain, especially for intraindividual short-time issues, are presented. Nevertheless, we are still far away from "ideal" methods. If subjective phenomena such as pain are studied, especially in the field of pain therapy, then nonspecific factors like suggestion, intentional or not, must be taken into consideration: Placebo effect and Nocebo effect.