European journal of pain : EJP
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There has been a significant amount of research performed on the relationship between the presence of chronic pain and all forms of suicidality. This study explored which rehabilitation acute pain patient (APP) and rehabilitation chronic pain patient (CPP) variables are predictive of six suicidality items: wanting to die because of pain; wanting to die because life is hard; history of wanting to die; history of suicide attempts; recent frequent suicide ideation; and having a suicidal plan. ⋯ Suicidality predictor variables were differentially distributed between APPs and CPPs and between different forms of suicidality. Some suicidality predictor variables appeared to be specific to pain patients.
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Observing other people's pain increases our own reports to painful stimuli, a phenomenon that can be defined as 'compassional hyperalgesia' (CH). This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural correlates of CH, and whether CH could emerge when exposure to the driving stimulus was subliminal. Subjects received electric somatosensory stimuli while observing images of people undergoing painful or enjoyable somatic sensations, presented during a period allowing or not allowing conscious perception. ⋯ CH appears as a high-order phenomenon needing conscious appraisal of the eliciting visual stimulus, and supported by polymodal areas distinct from the basic Pain Matrix. This suggests that compassion to pain does not result from a mere 'sensory resonance' in pain networks, but rather from an interaction between the output of a first-line processing in the Pain Matrix, and the activity of a high-order network involving multisensory integration (temporo-parietal), encoding of internal states (mid-prefrontal) and short-time memory encoding (dorsolateral prefrontal). The Pain Matrix cannot be considered as an 'objective' correlate of the pain experience in all situations.
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The biobehavioural pain reactivity and recovery of preterm infants in the neonatal period may reflect the capacity of the central nervous system to regulate neurobiological development. ⋯ The infants exhibiting a high neonatal clinical risk showed high arousal during the puncture procedure and higher physiological reactivity in the recovery phase.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics states that ongoing assessment of pain is essential for adequate pain treatment. Pain assessment by means of the COMFORT behaviour scale and the Numeric Rating Scale is therefore an important component of the post-operative pain treatment protocol for neonates and infants in our intensive care unit (ICU). ⋯ The post-operative pain protocol applied in our ICU appears to be effective; however, full compliance to the protocol was marginal, possibly leading to under-treatment of pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effects of sub-perception threshold spinal cord stimulation in neuropathic pain: a randomized controlled double-blind crossover study.
Recent studies suggest that perception of the paraesthesia elicited by spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is not necessarily required for the pain relieving effect. ⋯ Sub-threshold stimulation under otherwise conventional stimulation parameters has a measurable but not clinically sufficient effect. Thus, the pain relieving effect elicited by SCS is not necessarily linked to the perceptibility of stimulation but may instead be attributed to the intensity of the electric field.