On page 177 in the chapter on facial pain and craniomandibular disorders, paragraph six is titled Evaluated Mounted Diagnostic Casts, which is totally unrelated to the discussion in the paragraph. These few and minor publishing errors do not diminish the overall excellence of the book, however. Part II, Clinical Aspects, includes the neuropsychiatric and medical examination of the patient. Diagnosis and treatment of the painful neurological disorders is comprehensive, although reflex sympathetic dystrophy, which is defined as not having any nerve injury associated, is called a neuropathic pain syndrome. This contradiction is not peculiar to this text, however, because it permeates much other literature on the topic.
Special attention is given to herpetic and postherpetic neuralgia in a separate chapter.
Part III, Regional Disorders, covers regional pain syndromes, ranging from the head to the extremities, including central and spinal cord pain, joint pain, pelvic and bladder pain, and all of the myofascial pain syndromes. Charles Fager covers surgical considerations and caveats regarding the low back in a particularly useful chapter. The discussion of RSD is inadequate for a condition that is being diagnosed in nearly epidemic proportions in the United States in the last decade. Furthermore, reading the chapter does not help to achieve an understanding of the problem. The author confuses the issues surrounding this very controversial disorder all the more.