Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Cognitive dysfunction in fibromyalgia has become a key symptom considered by patients as more disabling than pain itself. Experimental evidence from neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies indicates that such cognitive impairments are especially robust when patients need to set in motion working memory processes, suggesting the existence of an altered functioning underlying the cerebral cortices of the frontoparietal memory network. However, the temporal dynamics of working memory subprocesses have not yet been explored in fibromyalgia. ⋯ The present results suggest that both encoding of information (as reflected by P2) and subsequently context updating and replacement (as seen in lower P3 amplitudes), as a part of working memory subprocesses, are impaired in fibromyalgia. Studying the temporal dynamics of working memory through the use of ERP methodology is a helpful approach to detect specific impaired cognitive mechanisms in this chronic pain syndrome. These new data could be used to develop more specific treatments adapted for each patient.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The effect of erector spinae block versus serratus plane block on pain scores and diaphragmatic excursion in multiple rib fractures. A prospective randomized trial.
We aimed to investigate whether ultrasound guided erector spinae plane block and serratus anterior plane block would provide effective and safe analgesia in patients with fracture ribs, and to detect their effects on diaphragmatic excursion in such cases. ⋯ Both erector spinae block and serratus plane block provided safe and effective pain relief in traumatic rib fractures. Although the erector spinae group displayed significantly reduced pain scores, decreased analgesic needs and improved diaphragmatic excursion as compared to serratus group, nevertheless, this was of no clinical significance.
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Some claimants harbor perceptions of injustice about the way they have been treated. In particular, those with ongoing and disabling pain have been generally dissatisfied by the way they have been managed by the systems designed to offer them financial compensation. ⋯ Although the Prussian and German approach provided a utilitarian model for similar systems around the world, its failure to include some long-established benefits of a moral nature may have contributed to the current perceptions of injustice expressed by many injured workers experiencing persistent pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effect of transcranial direct current brain stimulation of the motor cortex on chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting in female patients with breast cancer.
Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) is an adverse outcome associated with chemotherapy and is sometimes difficult to manage. This study aimed to examine the impact of a single session of transcranial direct current brain stimulation (tDCS; 2 mA) over the motor cortex for 20 minutes before chemotherapy in patients receiving a highly emetogenic chemotherapy. ⋯ A single session of M1 tDCS is suggested as an effective adjuvant therapy to control CINV in female patients suffering from breast cancer and receiving highly emetogenic chemotherapy. Corroboratory studies are needed.