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Arthritis is a term often used to mean any disorder that affects joints. Symptoms generally include joint pain and stiffness. Other symptoms may include redness, warmth, swelling, and decreased range of motion of the affected joints. In some types other organs are also affected. Onset can be gradual or sudden.

There are over 100 types of arthritis. The most common forms are osteoarthritis (degenerative joint disease) and rheumatoid arthritis. Osteoarthritis usually occurs with age and affects the fingers, knees, and hips. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder that often affects the hands and feet. Other types include gout, lupus, fibromyalgia, and septic arthritis. They are all types of rheumatic disease

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Chronic pain is pain that lasts a long time. In medicine, the distinction between acute and chronic pain is sometimes determined by an arbitrary interval of time since onset; the two most commonly used markers being 3 months and 6 months since onset, though some theorists and researchers have placed the transition from acute to chronic pain at 12 months. Others apply acute to pain that lasts less than 30 days, chronic to pain of more than six months duration, and subacute to pain that lasts from one to six months.

A popular alternative definition of chronic pain, involving no arbitrarily fixed duration, is "pain that extends beyond the expected period of healing". Epidemiological studies have found that 10.1% to 55.2% of people in various countries have chronic pain.

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), also known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), is a disorder of a portion of the body, usually the arms or legs, which manifests as pain, swelling, limited range of motion, and changes to the skin and bones. It may initially affect one limb and then spread throughout the body; 35% of affected people report symptoms throughout their whole bodies. There are multiple names for this disease, as well as two subtypes.

Type I (also called reflex sympathetic dystrophy) refers to CRPS without evidence of a specific peripheral nerve injury. Type II refers to when there is specific evidence of a nerve injury.

Up to 7% to 8% of the European population is affected, and in 5% of persons it may be severe. Neuropathic pain may result from disorders of the peripheral nervous system or the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord).

Thus, neuropathic pain may be divided into peripheral neuropathic pain, central neuropathic pain, or mixed (peripheral and central) neuropathic pain.

Motor imagery can be defined as a dynamic state during which an individual mentally simulates a given action. This type of phenomenal experience implies that the subject feels themselves performing the action. It corresponds to the so-called internal imagery (or first person perspective) of sport psychologists.