Saurabh Pal

Administration of pain relieving drugs requires information of actual existence and severity of pain. Present work focuses towards patient’s verbal communication independent identification of the instant of generation and extinction of pain sensation using Galvanic skin response (GSR). Alteration of GSR during different stages of pain was recorded along with no pain condition. With application of pain stimuli, the nature of gSr becomes chaotic which is analyzed in Phase Space Reconstruction domain. Further, Time Absolute Integral and Z-score based analysis clearly provides the pain onset & offset time. Probably for the first time, pain onset & offset time detection was studied using GSR signal and Phase Space Reconstruction technique. Four pain states were considered for the study. The absolute average error of the proposed method is calculated as 1.7 second and 1.1 second for the transition instant of no pain to any of the pain sensation and any pain to no pain sensation respectively considering 85 subjects. Further analysis is presented in result section. Present method explains a model to detect pain onset and offset time using GSR. The zero crossing analysis makes the measurement robust and easy to detect pain onset & offset time. Actual estimation of pain onset & offset time may significantly enhance automatic drug administration management of patients undergoing exposure to pain. This can reduce the overdosing risk of opioids to reduce pain.