Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The Association Between Parkinson's Disease Motor Impairments and Pain.
This study aimed to: 1) examine the severity and frequency of pain and the extent to which pain interferes with work and 2) explore the contributions of motor impairments to pain in people with Parkinson's disease (PD). ⋯ Most people with PD experience pain at least monthly and pain interferes with daily activities. PD impairments are associated with more frequent pain and pain that interferes with work, with rigidity having the strongest association. Development of Parkinson's disease-specific pain assessments and further investigation into the association between PD impairments and pain is warranted.
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Observational Study
Timeliness of Care Planning upon Initiation of Chronic Opioid Therapy for Chronic Pain.
Chronic opioid therapy (COT) guidelines recommend developing a COT care plan at the initiation of COT. ⋯ Patients initiating COT were unlikely to have timely COT care plans. Many who sustained regular opioid use at 1 year had not anticipated using opioids long term.
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The purpose of this survey was to evaluate attitudes toward acupuncture among pain medicine fellowship directors. Additional goals were to assess the availability of acupuncture at academic medical centers and ascertain the inclusion of this modality in fellowship curricula. ⋯ Results from this survey indicate that acupuncture is widely available to patients at academic medical centers, integrated into many pain fellowship curricula, and considered a useful modality by physician leaders in the field of pain medicine. This sentiment, paired with the flexibility of national guidelines for pain fellowship curricula, suggests a trend toward greater inclusion of this modality in academic medicine.
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Association between iron deficiency anemia (IDA) and migraine, its subgroups, or tension-type headache (TTH) has not yet been shown. This study aimed to determine whether there was an association between IDA and these disorders. ⋯ Our findings indicate that IDA is significantly associated with PMM/MRM. Further research may determine whether the complex relationships between estrogen, iron metabolism, and dopamine dysfunction, and their effects on migraine, are underlying reasons for this association.
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Patients with fibromyalgia report periods of symptom exacerbation, colloquially referred to as "flares" and despite clinical observation of flares, no research has purposefully evaluated the presence and characteristics of flares in fibromyalgia. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe fibromyalgia flares in a sample of patients with fibromyalgia. ⋯ Our results demonstrate that periods of symptom exacerbation (i.e., flares) are commonly experienced by patients with fibromyalgia and symptoms of flares can be differentiated from every day or typical symptoms of fibromyalgia. Our study is the first of its kind to qualitatively explore characteristics, causes, and management strategies of fibromyalgia flares. Future studies are needed to quantitatively characterize fibromyalgia flares and evaluate mechanisms of flares.