European journal of pain : EJP
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Randomized Controlled Trial
One-year evaluation of the effect of physical therapy for masticatory muscle pain: a randomized controlled trial.
Physical therapy is widely used to decrease pain and restore function in patients suffering from masticatory muscle pain. Controlled studies on its efficacy are scarce. This study evaluated the 1-year effect of a 6-week physical therapy programme in a single blind, randomized, controlled trial. ⋯ All pain rating variables decreased and all function variables increased significantly over time in both groups. No significant differences in improvement between the groups (time-treatment interaction) were found. These data suggest that the long-term decrease in pain and the improvement of function are not related to active physical therapy.
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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.
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There is equivocal evidence regarding pain responding in endurance athletes. When performing, their pain experience appears reduced but it is uncertain whether this persists when not competing or training. This study aimed to clarify how marathon runners perceive pain, and the influence of self-efficacy and coping strategy use on their pain threshold and tolerance when they are not affected by immediate exercise. ⋯ Coping and catastrophizing did not differ between the two groups but higher associative coping when accompanied by lower dissociative coping was related to higher pain tolerance. These results indicate that marathon runners have a reduced experience of pain compared with non-runners. This ability appears to be augmented by a high level of pain specific self-efficacy but is unaffected by the influence of general cognitive coping strategies, although higher associative coping and lower dissociative coping together were related to reduced pain tolerance independent of running involvement.
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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.