Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
How to Teach Medical Students About Pain and Dementia: E-Learning, Experiential Learning, or Both?
Pain management in persons with mild to moderate dementia poses unique challenges because of altered pain modulation and the tendency of some individuals to perseverate. We aimed to test the impact of an e-learning module about pain in communicative people with dementia on third-year medical students who had or had not completed an experiential geriatrics course. ⋯ Medical students exposed to e-learning or experiential learning demonstrated improved confidence in evaluating and managing pain in patients with dementia. Those exposed to both educational methods also significantly improved their knowledge.
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Review Meta Analysis
Efficacy of Physical Therapy on Nociceptive Pain Processing Alterations in Patients with Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Chronic musculoskeletal pain is a major health, social, and economic problem. Most of the subjects who suffer from chronic musculoskeletal pain present processes of central sensitization. Temporal summation and conditioned pain modulation are the two most commonly used clinical measures of this. The objective of this review is to evaluate the effects of physical therapy on temporal summation (TS) and conditioned pain modulation (CPM) in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain. ⋯ Physical therapy produces a slight improvement in central sensitization (CS)-related variables, with TS decreased and CPM increased when compared with a control group in patients with CMP. Only significant differences in TS were identified in the manual therapy subgroup.
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To compare periprocedural pain from mechanodesensitization (MD) with local anesthetic (LA) during medial branch blocks (MBBs), with a secondary outcome to compare diagnostic responses during the five hours postprocedure. ⋯ LA before needle insertion for MBBs appears to be more painful compared with MD. Additionally, subcutaneously administered local anesthetic may have a therapeutic effect on nonspecific low back pain, resulting in a potentially false-positive test in the evaluation of lumbar facet pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effects of High-Intensity Laser Therapy on Pain Sensitivity and Motor Performance in Patients with Thumb Carpometacarpal Joint Osteoarthritis: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
To examine the effects of high-intensity laser therapy (HILT) on pain sensitivity and motor performance in patients with thumb carpometacarpal (CMC) osteoarthritis (OA). ⋯ HILT effectively diminishes pain intensity when used as an isolated treatment for patients with thumb CMC OA, but the effect of treatment decreases after 12 weeks.
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Screening for pain in routine care is one of the efforts that the Veterans Health Administration has adopted in its national pain management strategy. We aimed to understand patients' perspectives and preferences about the experience of being screened for pain in primary care. ⋯ Our results indicate that patients perceive meaningful, positive impacts of routine pain screening that as yet have not been considered in the literature. Specifically, screening for pain may help capture mental health concerns that may otherwise not emerge.