Pain
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The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences in pain experiences, pain control beliefs, pain coping strategies, and depressive tendency among Chinese elderly with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Participants (N=199) were drawn from a previous convenience sample of outpatients with OA in Taiwan. Results indicated female elders tended to report higher scores on least pain, current pain and overall pain intensity than male elders (all p<0.01). ⋯ In summary, this sample of elders showed gender differences in depressive tendency and some pain experiences but not in pain control beliefs and coping strategies. These results suggest that health care providers should be cautious about using gender differences to explain pain experiences among Chinese elders. In addition, health care providers may decrease these female patients' pain intensity and pain disturbance by treating depressive symptoms.
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Behaviour was assessed in 32 C57BL/6JCrl and 32 C3H/HeN male mice 1 h following vasectomy; saline or meloxicam was administered 30 min prior to surgery at 5, 10, or 20 mg kg(-1). Faeces were collected 24 h prior to, and 3, 6, 9, 12, 24 h following, vasectomy for measurement of faecal corticosterone. Peak corticosterone levels were significantly higher in mice that underwent vasectomy and received saline (p<0.001) or meloxicam at 5 or 10 mg kg(-1) (p=0.021, and p<0.001, respectively) compared with normal un-operated controls. ⋯ Strain differences were observed in both the stress response to vasectomy and the behavioural changes; the C3H/HeN mice had higher pain scores (behaviour Score 2) and peak corticosterone responses than the C57BL/6JCrl mice. We have demonstrated that significant changes occur in the behaviour of mice following vasectomy, and these changes are reduced by use of meloxicam. Vasectomy elicits a rise in corticosterone levels that was only reduced by the highest dose of meloxicam.
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Clinical Trial
On the repeatability of brush-evoked allodynia using a novel semi-quantitative method in patients with peripheral neuropathic pain.
Using a semi-quantitative method the repeatability of brush-evoked allodynia was examined within and between days in nine patients with spontaneous ongoing pain and dynamic mechanical allodynia due to peripheral neuropathy. In addition, the relationship between the intensity of spontaneous ongoing pain and the total brush-evoked pain intensity was addressed. The brush stimulus was applied in the innervation territory of the lesioned nervous structure by lightly stroking 60 mm of the skin four times with an 8 mm wide brush. ⋯ The patients were examined 4 days during one month, i.e. at day 1, 3, 28 and 30 and each study day the stimulus was repeated four times with an inter-stimulus interval of 10 min. The variation between repeated assessments was analyzed using the intraclass correlation coefficient and the total brush-evoked pain intensity within days ranged from 0.89 to 0.95 ("very good repeatability") and between days from 0.77 to 0.97 ("very good repeatability"). A significant positive correlation was demonstrated between the mean intensity of spontaneous ongoing pain and the mean total brush-evoked pain intensity (r(s)=0.68, P<0.042, "a moderate to good correlation").
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Depression is a common feature of chronic pain, but there is only limited research into the content of depressed cognitions in pain patients. This study investigated the content of cognition in depressed pain patients, non-depressed pain patients, and two control groups, healthy controls, and osteopaths using a sentence completion task. Participants generated completed sentences to a set of predefined stems that included negative, positive and neutral self-reference, and past, future and world terms. ⋯ We suggest that the focus of depression in chronic pain patients is health related. Pain patients who are not depressed focus on health, but not necessarily in a negative way. The concept of themselves in the future might be a key aspect in depression in pain patients.