Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Multicenter Study
Improving Pain Care with Project ECHO in Community Health Centers.
Pain is an extremely common complaint in primary care, and patient outcomes are often suboptimal. This project evaluated the impact of Project ECHO Pain videoconference case-based learning sessions on knowledge and quality of pain care in two Federally Qualified Health Centers. ⋯ Pain is an extremely common and challenging problem, particularly among vulnerable patients such as those cared for at the more than 1,200 Federally Qualified Health Centers in the United States. In this study, attendance at weekly Project ECHO Pain sessions not only improved knowledge and self-efficacy, but also altered prescribing and referral patterns, suggesting that knowledge acquired during ECHO sessions translated into practice changes.
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Spectral power analyses of EEG recordings are reported to distinguish the cortical activity of individuals with chronic pain from those of controls. Further study of these spectral patterns may provide a greater understanding of the processes associated with chronic pain, in addition to providing potential biometric markers of chronic pain for use in both clinical and research settings. However, sleep deprived groups have demonstrated similar characteristics in their spectral power characteristics, particularly in alpha bandwidth power activity. ⋯ This study's findings support that chronic pain intensity and sleep deficits are related to the Alpha spectral bandwidth activity in individuals with chronic pain.
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To investigate the efficacy of venlafaxine for neuropathic pain and review literature to determine if the medication provides adequate neuropathic pain relief. ⋯ In conclusion, venlafaxine is a safe and well-tolerated analgesic drug for the symptomatic treatment of neuropathic pain, and there is limited evidence that high-dose venlafaxine (150 mg/day) can be even more beneficial. While the present evidence is quite encouraging regarding venlafaxine's use for neuropathic pain, further research is needed to continue to expand on these findings, particularly when in consideration with other possible pharmacological agents.
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The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between pain and cognition in patients with multiple sclerosis. ⋯ The lack of a relationship between cognition and pain might be explained by the fact that, compared with control participants, patients with multiple sclerosis activate other non-pain-related areas to perform executive functions and memory tasks.