One feature of some of the more serious cases we deal with is often chronic pain. Chronic pain in itself simply means pain that continues for a long time, but in the context of legal cases it generally refers to pain in excess of what the physical injury would normally be expected to cause. Sometimes there will have been an initial injury which normally would be expected to get better by itself, but where the pain doesn't get better, or even gets worse. Chronic pain can have

A new study published in Nature has indicated that the controlled use of MDMA - also known as ecstasy - can help people to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is quite a common condition caused when people are exposed to shocking or stressful events such as accidents, serious violence, combat or sexual assault. The effects of PTSD vary, but often symptoms include being constantly on edge and unable to switch off, flashbacks and nightmares, becoming distressed a

Hollywood actor Alex Winter, star of the Bill and Ted films (the third instalment of which is out now), has spoken about his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. For him, his PTSD was caused by prolonged abuse while growing up as a child actor on Broadway. He suffered the effects of the condition for years, and describes it as wreaking havoc on him, and particularly on the way in which he related to the world around him, and to himself. The effects of PTSD have bee