Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Review Case Reports
Inadvertent disk injection during transforaminal epidural steroid injection: steps for prevention and management.
To report two cases of disk injection during transforaminal epidural steroid injection, and to discuss ways to prevent and manage this under-appreciated complication. ⋯ These cases and similar complications following transforaminal epidural steroid injections provide anecdotal evidence that recent imaging studies, repeated not only for qualitatively new symptoms but after a sustained quantitative increase in pain, may reduce the complication risk. Data extrapolated from studies on diskitis suggest that administering parenteral, and possibly also intradiskal antibiotics, immediately after inadvertent disk injection is appreciated, may reduce the infectious risk.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Source of drugs for prescription opioid analgesic abusers: a role for the Internet?
There has been a sharp increase in the abuse of prescription opioid analgesics in the United States in the past decade. It has been asserted, particularly by several governmental and regulatory agencies, that the Internet has become a significant source of these drugs which may account to a great extent for the surge in abuse. We have studied whether this is correct. ⋯ The assertion that the Internet has become a dangerous new avenue for the diversion of scheduled prescription opioid analgesics appears to be based on no empirical evidence and is largely incorrect.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study Clinical Trial
The self-administered 24-item geriatric pain measure (GPM-24-SA): psychometric properties in three European populations of community-dwelling older adults.
To explore the feasibility and psychometric properties of a self-administered version of the 24-item Geriatric Pain Measure (GPM-24-SA). ⋯ The GPM-24-SA is a promising tool for self-administered assessment of pain in community dwelling older adults. However, because of incomplete response and uncertainty in factor structure, further refinement and psychometric evaluation of the GPM-24-SA is needed before it could be recommended for widespread use.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Predictors of change in trunk muscle strength for patients with chronic low back pain randomized to lumbar fusion or cognitive intervention and exercises.
We have previously reported in two randomized controlled trials that cognitive intervention and exercises more effectively improved isokinetic trunk muscle strength than lumbar fusion and postoperative rehabilitation in patients with chronic low back pain. The aim of the present study was to predict changes in muscle strength as regard to changes in pain, function, fear-avoidance beliefs (self-rated questionnaires), changes in cross-sectional area and density of the back muscles and treatment. ⋯ Our results emphasize the central role of pain and treatment for the improvements in muscle strength in patients with chronic low back pain.
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Traditionally, opioids have been the cornerstone of therapy for patients suffering from cancer pain, regardless of the potential to develop opioid tolerance. In chronic pain patients who experience worsening pain despite increasing doses of opioids, the clinical role of opioid-induced hyperalgesia is gaining more recognition. ⋯ Opioid-induced hyperalgesia might be considered in a patient who has no evidence of disease progression, who is on clinically reasonable doses of opioids, and whose pain escalates as opioid doses are increased. A reduction of opioids and the addition of a low-dose N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist may provide a favorable clinical outcome in those patients who have failed to benefit from opioid rotation and other adjunctive pain treatments.