European journal of pain : EJP
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The primary purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between cardiovascular (CV) responsiveness to brief cognitive tasks and pain sensitivity in normotensive individuals. Fifty-eight healthy women without a history of chronic pain were exposed to three laboratory tasks (reading aloud, speech task, and tracking task) and repeated pain testing (electrocutaneous and pressure pain stimulation) while mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) were continuously recorded. Generally, subjects with higher HR responsiveness to the cognitive tasks displayed a reduced pain sensitivity, particularly to electrocutaneous pain stimulation. ⋯ Although relatively large CV changes were observed during the experimental tasks, small and insignificant changes in simultaneous or subsequent electrocutaneous pain sensitivity occurred. However, significant increases in pressure pain threshold and tolerance occurred after the speech task, during which MAP level was at its highest. The present findings support the hypothesis that pain sensitivity and CV response share a common mechanism, which, however, is not necessarily linked to either elevated blood pressure levels or other risk factors for hypertension.
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There has been growing empirical examination of the co-occurrence of pain and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and existing evidence suggests that the symptoms associated with each have a close association. To date, however, the association has only been examined within samples of mostly male participants. ⋯ These results indicate that the association between pain and PTSD symptoms, previously observed in primarily male samples, is generalisable to females. Clinical implications and possible mechanisms of association are discussed.
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This study investigated the prevalence of back pain, disability, and, of most importance, the presence of misconceptions about low back pain (LBP), its diagnosis and treatment in a bicultural community sample (Belgium). Using the Graded Chronic Pain Scale [Pain 50 (1992) 133] persons were classified according to pain intensity and disability in five subgroups. The interrelationship between LBP beliefs and these five subgroups was also investigated. ⋯ The least misconceptions were found to exist in participants with mild LBP without disability. It is suggested that recovery from an episode of acute low back pain is an active process that involves a correction of beliefs about harm, about the need to restrict physical activities and about medical diagnosis and cure. Finally, it is argued that community actions may be useful to correct LBP myths in order to prevent the development of long-term disability due to LBP.