Tactual sensitivity of chronic pain patients to non-painful stimuli

Chronic pain research tends to focus on responses to thresholds, tolerance and discrimination involving painful stimuli. This investigation, however, examines responses of individuals with chronic pain to non-painful stimuli. Two-point thresholds were obtained from 19 chronic pain patients and 17 pain-free individuals. The chronic pain patients had a significantly higher two-point threshold, 40.3 mm (S.D., 15.0 mm) than that of the control group, which had a two-point threshold of 30.8 mm (S.D., 7.4 mm). The results indicate that chronic pain decreases tactual sensitivity to non-painful stimuli.