JAMA neurology
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effect of Intensive Patient Education vs Placebo Patient Education on Outcomes in Patients With Acute Low Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial.
Many patients with acute low back pain do not recover with basic first-line care (advice, reassurance, and simple analgesia, if necessary). It is unclear whether intensive patient education improves clinical outcomes for those patients already receiving first-line care. ⋯ Adding 2 hours of patient education to recommended first-line care for patients with acute low back pain did not improve pain outcomes. Clinical guideline recommendations to provide complex and intensive support to high-risk patients with acute low back pain may have been premature.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Effect of Gabapentin vs Pregabalin on Pain Intensity in Adults With Chronic Sciatica: A Randomized Clinical Trial.
Optimal pharmacologic treatment for chronic sciatica (CS) is currently unclear. While gabapentin (GBP) and pregabalin (PGB) are both used to treat CS, equipoise exists. Nevertheless, pharmaceutical regulation authorities typically subsidize one drug over the other. This hinders interchange wherever the favored drug is either ineffective or ill-tolerated. ⋯ Pregabalin and GBP were both significantly efficacious. However, GBP was superior with fewer and less severe adverse events. Gabapentin should be commenced before PGB to permit optimal crossover of medicines.
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Prognostication of neurologic outcome after cardiac arrest is an important but challenging aspect of patient therapy management in critical care units. ⋯ Findings from this study suggest that the serum NFL level is a highly predictive marker of long-term poor neurologic outcome at 24 hours after cardiac arrest and may be a useful complement to currently available neurologic prognostication methods.
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Spinal cord infarction (SCI) is often disabling, and the diagnosis can be challenging without an inciting event (eg, aortic surgery). Patients with a spontaneous SCI are often misdiagnosed as having transverse myelitis. Diagnostic criteria for SCI are lacking, hindering clinical care and research. ⋯ This large series of spontaneous SCIs provides clinical, laboratory, and MRI clues to SCI diagnosis. The diagnostic criteria proposed here will aid clinicians in making the correct diagnosis and ideally improve future care for patients with SCI. The validation of these criteria supports their utility in the evaluation of acute myelopathy.