Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Each year, more than 150,000 patients with rib fractures are admitted to US trauma centers; as many as 10% die. Effective pain control is critical to survival. One way to manage pain is thoracic epidural analgesia. If this treatment reduces mortality, more frequent use may be indicated. ⋯ Thoracic epidural analgesia associates with reduced mortality in rib fracture patients. Better care of this population is likely to be facilitated by more frequent reliance on this treatment.
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Comparative Study Observational Study
Conventional (Simplicity III) and Cooled (SInergy) Radiofrequency for Sacroiliac Joint Denervation: One-Year Retrospective Study Comparing Two Devices.
To compare two radiofrequency (RF) devices, Simplicity III (conventional RF), and SInergy (cooled RF), which are specifically designed to denervate the sacroiliac joint (SIJ). ⋯ The study results suggest that SInergy safely afforded patients with greater and more durable analgesia and disability relief than Simplicity III for SIJ-derived pain. The Simplicity III procedure may be more conducive than SInergy for bilateral procedures and for patients who have limited tolerance to be in an RF procedure-required prone position. Randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm the implication made in this study that SInergy is the preferred RF denervation option for treating SIJ-derived pain and the disability associated with it.
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Clinical Trial
Increased Evoked Potentials and Behavioral Indices in Response to Pain Among Individuals with Intellectual Disability.
Previous studies on the sensitivity and reactivity to pain of individuals with intellectual disability (ID) are inconsistent. The inconsistency may result from the reliance on self-reports and facial expressions of pain that are subject to internal and external biases. The aim was therefore to evaluate the reactivity to pain of individuals with ID by recording pain-evoked potentials (EPs), here for the first time, and testing their association with behavioral pain indices. ⋯ Individuals with ID are hypersensitive/reactive to pain, a finding bearing clinical implications. Although pain EPs may reflect a somewhat different aspect of pain than the behavioral indices do, there is evidence to support their use to record pain in noncommunicative individuals, pending further validation.
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Letter Case Reports
Topical Gabapentin as Add-on Therapy for Trigeminal Neuralgia. A Case Report.