Der Schmerz
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Headache can be a widespread symptom as well as a disorder in itself. Headache syndromes such as migraine cause a lot of distress, disability and overall socioeconomic costs. Pharmacological treatments are often limited in their efficacy as well as due to side effects. ⋯ Our results show a large number of highly favorable reports of treatment successes. However, the number of cases analysed is often rather small and the forms of electric stimulation applied were often highly heterogeneous. In summary, electric stimulation appears to be a promising field of research and a possible therapeutic agent for the treatment of headaches; however, further research is necessary, especially into the details of the stimulation techniques applied and the various indications in which it may be of use.
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Traditionally, two mechanistic pain categories were distinguished: nociceptive and neuropathic pain. After the definitions of these two mechanistic descriptors were refined more precisely in the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) taxonomy in 2011, a large group of patients remained whose pain could not be assigned to either of the two categories. ⋯ This review article presents the current state of the integration of nociplastic pain into research and clinical practice. In particular, the possibilities and difficulties of applying this concept are addressed from a human and animal experimental research perspective.
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Chronic pain is a common health problem, for which the treatment is complex and challenging. Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, specifically transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), show promise as a well-tolerated new therapeutic modality with few side effects. This is supported by growing evidence of an association between altered neuronal oscillations and chronic pain. However, to date, only a handful of studies with variable methodology have evaluated tACS for potential applicability to patients with chronic pain. ⋯ These data currently do not provide sufficient evidence for the therapeutic use of tACS for chronic pain therapy. Future studies may address the question of a therapeutic benefit of tACS for this indication utilizing improved stimulation techniques and considering existing recommendations for the design and conduct of tACS studies.
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Opioid rotation can be indicated due to drug side effects, drug interactions or inadequate effect of treatment with opioids. For the determination of the oral morphine equivalence, a practice tool has been published with the long-term use of opioids in chronic nontumor-related pain (LONTS) guidelines. In contrast, several apps are available that have not yet been evaluated. ⋯ Although the apps and web applications simplify conversion between opioids, there is high variance in conversion factors and sometimes a relevant deviation from evidence-based tables. Overall, there is a high risk of false opioid dosing.
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An early treatment of patients who suffer from pain and show risk factors for chronification is meaningful as these patients can benefit from an early interdisciplinary multimodal pain treatment (IMST). In view of the insufficient treatment, two outpatient treatment modules for the secondary prevention of pain chronification are developed within the framework of PAIN2020: the educative and accompanying IMST (E‑IMST and B‑IMST). ⋯ There are now two interdisciplinary structured manuals for the secondary preventive treatment of patients with recurrent pain and a risk profile for chronification. These approaches must now prove themselves with respect to feasibility and effectiveness.