Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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For many years, spirituality has been regarded as an integral aspect of patient care in fields closely allied to pain medicine such as palliative and supportive care. Despite this, it has received relatively little attention within the field of pain medicine itself. Reasons for this may include a lack of understanding of what spirituality means, doubtfulness of its relevance, an uncertainty about how it may be addressed, or a lack of awareness of how addressing spirituality may be of benefit. ⋯ Given the firm place that spirituality now holds within other fields and the mounting evidence for its relevance and benefit for people with pain, there is increasing evidence to support the inclusion of spiritual factors as an important component in the assessment and treatment of pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Cervical transforaminal epidural block using low-dose local anesthetic: a prospective, randomized, double-blind study.
Intra-arterial injections of local anesthetic during cervical transforaminal epidural block (TFEB) can cause rare but fatal neurologic complications. We hypothesized that using a dose of local anesthetic lower than seizure threshold during cervical TFEB would not be associated with seizure activity in cases of accidental intra-arterial injection. ⋯ Cervical TFEB performed using 0.125% lidocaine with dexamethasone achieved similar satisfactory effects as 1% lidocaine with dexamethasone for the treatment of cervical radicular pain. Therefore, the use of low-dose lidocaine with dexamethasone is reasonable for cervical TFEB, as this may reduce the incidence of rare but fatal complications.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Time to improvement of pain and sleep quality in clinical trials of pregabalin for the treatment of fibromyalgia.
To determine the time to immediate and sustained clinical improvement in pain and sleep quality with pregabalin in patients with fibromyalgia. ⋯ Both immediate and sustained clinical improvements in pain and sleep quality occurred faster with pregabalin vs placebo.
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Clinical Trial
Assessment of pain intensity in clinical trials: individual ratings vs composite scores.
To evaluate the reliability of findings suggesting that composite scores made up of just two ratings of recalled pain may be adequately reliable and valid for assessing outcome in pain clinical trials. ⋯ The findings provide additional evidence that two-item composite scores may be adequate for assessing the primary outcome of pain intensity in chronic pain clinical trials. Additional research is needed to further establish the generalizability of these findings.
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Clinical Trial
A brief peer support intervention for veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain: a pilot study of feasibility and effectiveness.
The aim of this study was to pilot test a peer support intervention, involving peer delivery of pain self-management strategies, for veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain. ⋯ This study suggests that peers can effectively deliver pain self-management strategies to other veterans with pain. Although this was a pilot study with a relatively short intervention period, patients improved on several outcomes.