The Clinical journal of pain
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To assess the clinical validity and factor structure of the Fear-Avoidance Components Scale (FACS), a new fear-avoidance measure. ⋯ Strong associations were found among FACS scores and other patient-reported psychosocial and objective lifting performance variables at both admission and discharge. High discharge-FACS scores were associated with worse work outcomes 1 year after discharge. The FACS seems to be a valid and clinically useful measure for predicting attendance, physical performance, distress, and relevant work outcomes in FRP treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain disorder patients.
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Multicenter Study
Mixed Pain Can Be Discerned in the Primary Care and Orthopedics Settings in Spain: A Large Cross-Sectional Study.
To assess the value of the concept of mixed pain by investigating its acceptance and interpretation by health care professionals and the differential characteristics in patients with mixed pain. ⋯ Patients with mixed pain showed more clinical complexity than patients with other types of pain. The consideration of mixed pain as an independent pathophysiological category may be justifiable on empirical clinical grounds.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The Impact of Serum Drug Concentration on the Efficacy of Imipramine, Pregabalin and their Combination in Painful Polyneuropathy.
The aim of this study was to explore the serum concentration-effect relation for first-line drugs in neuropathic pain and to determine if efficacy could be increased. ⋯ There were no important relations between drug concentrations and efficacy, or indication of synergistic interaction between the drugs. It was not concluded that treatment can be improved by measurement of drug concentration of pregabalin.
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Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a chronic pain disorder in which abnormally shaped red blood cells obstruct microcirculation causing ischemia and pain. The lack of SCD responsiveness to analgesics has led many to propose that nociceptive neural systems engaged when detecting pain become sensitized, resulting in an enhancement of pain response. ⋯ There was evidence for both increased and decreased connectivity which is consistent with findings in other chronic pain disorders. Preliminary evidence was found that subcortical brain regions might contribute to neurodevelopmental abnormalities in chronic pain. The results support a model in which SCD pain sensitization involves abnormally low functional integration of brain regions that make use of nociceptive information to plan movements, and hyperconnectivity of various frontal and parietal lobe regions that direct attention to or represent higher-order abstractions within circuits involved with either nocioceptive processing or detection of abnormally salient environmental stimuli.
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The aim of this study is to investigate the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma isoform (PPARγ), in trigeminal neuropathic pain utilizing a novel mouse trigeminal inflammatory compression (TIC) injury model. ⋯ This is the first study localizing PPARγ immunoreactivity throughout the brainstem trigeminal sensory spinal nucleus (spV) and its increase three weeks after TIC nerve injury. This is also the first study to demonstrate that activation of PPARγ attenuates trigeminal hypersensitivity in the mouse TIC nerve injury model. The findings presented here suggest the possibility of utilizing the FDA approved diabetic treatment drug, PIO, as a new therapeutic that targets PPARγ for treatment of patients suffering from orofacial neuropathic pain.