Pain
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Controlled trial of Internet-based treatment with telephone support for chronic back pain.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an Internet-based cognitive-behavioral intervention with telephone support for chronic back pain. Participants who met the criteria for chronic back pain (N=56) were randomly assigned to either an Internet-based cognitive behavioral self-help treatment or to a waiting-list control condition. The study period lasted 8 weeks and consisted of 1 week of self-monitoring prior to the intervention, 6 weeks of intervention, and 1 week of post-intervention assessment. ⋯ A follow-up of 3 months after treatment termination was completed in 92% (N=47) of the participants who completed the treatment intervention. Follow-up results showed that some improvement was maintained. Findings indicate that Internet-based self-help with telephone support, based on established psychological treatment methods, holds promise as an effective approach for treating disability in association with pain.
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Comparative Study
Catastrophizing as a mediator of sex differences in pain: differential effects for daily pain versus laboratory-induced pain.
Sex differences in the experience of pain have been widely reported, with females generally reporting more frequent clinical pain and demonstrating greater pain sensitivity. However, the mechanisms underpinning such differences, while subject to intense speculation, are not well-characterized. Catastrophizing is a cognitive and affective process that relates strongly to enhanced reports of pain and that varies as a function of sex. ⋯ Women reported greater levels of catastrophizing, more recent painful symptoms, and demonstrated lower pain thresholds and tolerances for noxious heat and cold relative to men. Mediational analyses suggested that after controlling for negative mood, catastrophizing mediated the sex difference in recent daily pain but did not mediate the much larger sex differences in pain threshold and tolerance. These findings highlight the role of catastrophizing in shaping pain responses, as well as illuminating potentially important differences between experimental pain assessment and the clinical experience of pain.
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Both children and adults with cognitive impairment (CI) have historically been excluded from research examining pain. This is unfortunate since patients with CI may be at higher risk for experiencing pain or having their pain undertreated due to the difficulty of pain assessment and communication. There are now several published reports about the general pain experience of both adult and pediatric patients with cognitive impairment. ⋯ Analgesic administration data include type and amount of opioid, type of non-opioid medication, and prescribed discharge medications. Results of this study show that children with CI undergoing surgery received less opioid in the perioperative period than children without CI. However, children with CI received comparable amounts and types of analgesics in the postoperative period as children without CI.
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Comparative Study
Reduced heat sensitivity and epidermal nerve fiber immunostaining following single applications of a high-concentration capsaicin patch.
Capsaicin-containing plant extracts have been used as topical treatments for a variety of pain syndromes for many centuries. Current products containing capsaicin in low concentrations (usually 0.025-0.075% w/w) have shown efficacy against a variety of pain conditions in clinical studies. However, in order to produce significant analgesic effects, these formulations require frequent re-dosing, often as much as three to five times daily for several weeks. ⋯ The results show a significant reduction of heat, but not cold, sensitivity and reduction of ENF immunostaining with high-capsaicin concentration patch applications for 60 or 120 min, compared to placebo patch applications. Application sites exposed to low-capsaicin concentration (0.04%w/w) patches for 120 min or high-concentration patches for 30 min were not significantly different from placebo with respect to either thermal threshold detection or ENF immunostaining. The ability of a single 60 min high-concentration patch application to mimic effects produced by prolonged exposure to low-concentration capsaicin creams suggests a new approach to the management of chronic pain syndromes.
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We have examined the effect of an intradermal injection of phenylephrine (1mg/0.1 ml), an alpha-1-adrenoceptor agonist in normal subjects, and patients with sympathetically-independent (SIP) and sympathetically-maintained pain (SMP). Normal subjects and SIP patients experienced only brief stinging pain, while subsets of both sympathectomized and non-sympathectomized SMP patients (6/9 and 4/8, respectively) experienced an additional abnormal pain response accompanied by mechano-allodynia around the injection site. ⋯ Abnormal pain response evoked by norepinephrine or phenylephrine injection in the ipsilateral symptomatic limb of SMP patients may be due to injury-evoked nociceptor responsiveness to catecholamines. However, such a response in contralateral asymptomatic limbs suggests an additional factor that more likely than not is of central origin and may or may not be related to sympathectomy and its success or failure to treat pain.