Impairments, disabilities, and handicaps of patients with neck-and-shoulder pain; how are these consequences of disease classified?

This article describes various ways of classifying clinical problems related to pain in the neck-and-shoulder regions: the classification of impairments, disabilities, and handicaps, the classification of diseases and injuries, and the classification of chronic pain. It has been argued that diagnosis and classification is bad for patients: "it only labels the patient", it has been said. Of course, the individual patient must be taken care of with a comprehensive view, yet the best way to improve our possibilities to help patients is to strive for better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the problem they present, and this cannot be done without tools of categories. Hence the classifications of clinical problems are absolutely necessary. Classifications do not harm the patients, but lack of knowledge can do so!