Ouch! Evaluating Tricks to Help Ease Pain

Grade Level: Elementary School/Middle School; Type: Social Science

Objective:

To evaluate the efficacy of different pain management techniques.

Research Questions:

• Which technique allows the test subject to manage his or her discomfort for the longest amount of time?
• Are there specific pain management techniques that work better for men compared to women?

People use a variety of techniques to deal with pain or discomfort. Common pain management techniques include listening to music, massage, and deep breathing. This experiment will evaluate how well these strategies are able to help test subjects manage the discomfort of icy water.

Materials:

• A bowl that is big enough to fully submerge a hand
• Ice water
• A stop watch
• Music
• Hand held massager

Experimental Procedure:

1. Fill the bowl with ice water.
2. Start your stopwatch when the test subject puts his or her hand in the bowl of ice water.
3. Record how long the subject is able to keep his or her hand in the bowl of ice water.
4. Wait 5-10 minutes between each test.
5. Turn on music and repeat the test.
6. Ask subject to do slow, deep breathing while performing the test.
7. Use massager on subject while performing the test.
8. Evaluate any other techniques you encounter in your research.
9. Repeat all of the steps for many different subjects.

Sample table for recording data:

Terms:/Concepts: How and why do people feel pain?; What are popular pain management techniques?

References:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "What is Pain?" 

Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement. "Controlling Acute Pain."