Pain research & management : the journal of the Canadian Pain Society = journal de la société canadienne pour le traitement de la douleur
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Acute pain and distress during medical procedures are commonplace for young children. ⋯ Although a number of nonpharmacological treatments have sufficient evidence supporting their efficacy with preterm infants and healthy neonates, no treatments had sufficient evidence to support efficacy with healthy older infants ⁄ young children.
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An enriched enrollment randomized withdrawal (EERW) design excludes potential participants who are nonresponders or who cannot tolerate the experimental drug before random assignment. It is unclear whether EERW design has an influence on the efficacy and safety of opioids for chronic noncancer pain (CNCP). ⋯ EERW trial designs appear not to bias the results of efficacy, but they underestimate the adverse effects. The present updated meta- analysis shows that weak and strong opioids are effective for CNCP of both nociceptive and neuropathic origin.
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Signs of pain may be subtle or absent in a critically ill infant. The complex nature of pain may further obscure its identification and measurement. Because the use of monitoring and neuroimaging techniques has become more common in pain research, an understanding of these specialized technologies is important. ⋯ This is followed by an overview of NIRS technology including a summary of the literature on functional studies that have used NIRS in infants. Current NIRS techniques have well-recognized limitations that must be considered carefully during the measurement and interpretation of the signals. Nonetheless, until more advanced NIRS techniques emerge, the current devices have strengths that should be exploited.
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Opioid analgesia impairs gonadal function in men and women, but the correlation with symptoms and hormonal measurements of hypogonadism is not well established. ⋯ Opioids frequently cause low FT levels in men, but there is no relationship between abnormal hormone levels and symptoms of sexual dysfunction. Therefore, all men should be screened for low FT levels. Women on opioids had lower FT levels, but this did not correlate with sexual dysfunction symptoms. Therefore, measurements of FT or other hormones were not considered to be useful in women.
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Very few studies have investigated the psychological factors associated with the pain experiences of children and adolescents in community samples. ⋯ Boys and girls appear to differ in terms of how age and pain history relate to the expression of pain-related psychological variables. Given the prevalence of persistent pain found in the study, more research is needed regarding the developmental implications of persistent pain in childhood and adolescence.