European journal of pain : EJP
-
Electronic diaries are increasingly used to assess daily pain in many different forms and populations. This systematic review aims to survey the characteristics of studies using electronic pain diaries and to examine how these characteristics affect compliance. A literature search of 11 electronic databases was conducted. ⋯ It is important that the various study characteristics are catalogued carefully, especially response and attrition rates, because they can affect compliance. Measures of momentary pain are often developed for the purpose of a certain study; standardisation and validation of these measures is recommended. Finally, authors should mention whether they report on data that has also been used in previous studies.
-
Low back pain (LBP) and neck pain (NP) are common among the adult population but relatively few reports exist on the associations between these. We examined cross-sectional and prospective relationships of LBP with NP in an employee cohort studied repeatedly over 28 years. Locally perceived pain was studied separately from pain with a radiating component. ⋯ In conclusion, the study showed a clear association of LBP with NP that persisted on a similar level irrespective of the aging of the cohort. Particularly, radiating LBP was associated with radiating NP. The prospective associations of LBP at baseline with new reports of radiating NP decreased as the length of follow-up increased.
-
It is well known that patients with orofacial cancer suffer from cancer-induced pain which produces feeding difficulties. To understand the mechanisms of pain associated with orofacial cancer, we have recently created a model for rat orofacial cancer by inoculation with Walker carcinosarcoma 256B-cells into the vibrissal pads. The present study used both behavioral and immunohistochemical techniques to investigate changes in pain-related and ingestive behavior, along with c-Fos expression in the medullary dorsal horn which is a site for processing orofacial pain. ⋯ Although hyposensitivity to mechanical and thermal stimulation was observed in the inoculated region after day 10, hyperalgesia developed on the margin of the tumor, suggesting that the hypersensitive region spread with growth of tumor mass. In the medullary dorsal horn, the levels of c-Fos immunoreactivity of the ipsilateral side increased significantly on days 4, 7 and 10, supporting the behavioral observations. These results indicate that the rat model shows symptoms similar to those in patients with orofacial cancer, for example, induction of feeding disorder and neuropathic pain.
-
To source and critically evaluate the evidence on the effectiveness of Physiotherapy to manage adult CRPS-1. ⋯ Graded motor imagery should be used to reduce pain in adult CRPS-1 patients. Further, the results of this review should be used to update CRPS-1 clinical guidelines.
-
Various risk factors associated with disability pensioning have been reported. This study investigated the relationship between the number of pain sites and risk of receiving a disability pension. We hypothesised that risk of work disability would increase as the number of pain sites increased, even after controlling for potential confounders. ⋯ However, a model controlling for all significant confounders showed that general health and sick leave previous year captured almost all the predictive power of the number of pain sites on work disability. Since these variables could be seen as intermediate variables and not confounders, they were excluded in a new model which gave a strong "dose-response" relationship between number of pain sites and disability with a 10-fold increase from 0 to 9-10 pain sites. The predictive validity of the number of pain sites in determining future disability renders this simple measurement useful for future research on musculoskeletal pain and functioning.