Musculoskeletal pain- moving from symptoms and syndromes to mechanisms

Pain is defined by International Association for the Study of Pain as; "An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage." Pain necessarily involves three different levels of classification- based upon pain symptoms, pain mechanisms and pain syndromes. The objective of this editorial is to update the existing knowledge in pain sciences and an evidence-informed paradigm shift from symptoms and syndromes to a mechanism-based understanding.