European journal of pain : EJP
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Parental responses to children's pain shape how children interpret and cope with pain symptoms through parental modelling and operant conditioning. Evidence suggests that parental distraction is effective in reducing children's acute pain responses, but findings are inconsistent across pain tolerance, intensity and unpleasantness, and are limited to samples of primarily middle and upper-middle class families. Although socioeconomically disadvantaged families may have fewer psychological resources to cope with pain, no studies have examined whether the utility of parent distraction varies by family socioeconomic status (SES). The current study tested the hypothesis that relations between parental distraction and acute pain responses in children vary by family SES, with children from higher versus lower SES families experiencing more substantial benefits. ⋯ Study findings suggest that the effects of parental distraction on children's responses to an acute pain task vary by family SES. Although parental distraction may be effective for higher SES children, further research is needed to identify whether and why distraction may not be beneficial for lower SES families.
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We aimed to investigate the conduction velocity of the cold spinal pathway in healthy humans. ⋯ This neurophysiological study provides previously unreported findings on cold spinal pathway conduction velocity in healthy humans. Cold-evoked potentials may represent an alternative to laser-evoked potential recording, useful to assess spinothalamic tract in patients with spinal cord lesions and monitor patients during spinal surgery.
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Review Meta Analysis
Pelvic floor muscle training for women with lumbopelvic pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
It has been suggested that pelvic floor dysfunction may contribute to the development of lumbopelvic pain as a result of changes in trunk muscle control. However, there is limited evidence that pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) can improve clinical outcomes in women with lumbopelvic pain. ⋯ Overall, the certainty of the evidence was very low to low. There is no conclusive evidence that the addition of PFMT to usual physiotherapy care or minimal intervention is superior to minimal intervention and usual care alone given the small number of studies and high levels of heterogeneity of included studies. Further well-designed trials are needed to establish the effectiveness of PFMT for lumbopelvic pain in women.
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Few studies examining the effect of pain-related threat on eye movements have incorporated a measure of interpretation bias. However, theories suggest that interpretation biases also play an important role in the anticipation of harm in situations where pain could be imminent. The current study investigates the association between interpretation biases and pain-related threat expectancies and their associations with eye movements to pain-related imagery. ⋯ Negative interpretation biases may be associated with greater threat expectancies for an upcoming experimental pain task. Anticipation of bodily harm may induce a stimulus non-specific hypervigilant style of scanning of pain-related scenes.
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Pain is a subjective experience characterized by sensory (intensity) and emotional (unpleasantness) aspects. Although literature reports behavioural effects on pain due to smell and taste influence, to our knowledge the relationship between tonic pain induced by a capsaicin cream and these chemosensory systems has never been explored before. The aim of this study was to investigate the modulation of olfactory and gustatory substances having different valence on tonic pain perception mediated by a capsaicin cream application. ⋯ This work shows the effect of smell on the emotional component of tonic pain, experimentally induced by capsaicin cream application. Previous literature investigated tonic pain in interaction with smell and/or taste stimuli, but mainly with physical methods such as temperature. Our findings add new information in this field, contributing to a deeper insight on the role of olfaction on this particular kind of tonic pain perception. This approach could open to new investigations aimed to consider odours for pain management.