Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The effect of anxiety and depression on improvements in pain in a randomized, controlled trial of pregabalin for treatment of fibromyalgia.
To assess symptoms of anxiety and depression in a large cohort of fibromyalgia patients and to determine the impact of these symptoms on response of pain to pregabalin treatment. ⋯ Anxiety symptoms were more common than depressive symptoms in this cohort. Our results suggest patients with fibromyalgia should be routinely assessed for the presence of both anxiety and depression. The pain treatment effect of pregabalin did not depend on baseline anxiety or depressive symptoms, suggesting pregabalin improves pain in patients with or without these symptoms. Much of the pain reduction appears to be independent of improvements in anxiety or mood symptoms.
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Reflexive responses to pain such as facial reactions become increasingly important for pain assessment among patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) because self-report capabilities diminish as cognitive abilities decline. Our goal was to study facial expressions of pain in patients with and without AD. ⋯ This is the first study to discriminate among FACS measures collected during innocuous and graded levels of precisely measured painful stimuli in seniors with (mild) dementia and in healthy control group participants. We conclude that, as hypothesized, FACS can be used for the assessment of evoked pain, regardless of the presence of AD.
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This study was conducted to test the hypothesis that gender differences in physical and emotional functioning are present among patients with fibromyalgia undergoing multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation. ⋯ These results support the hypothesis that pretreatment gender differences are present among fibromyalgia patients undergoing multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation and post-treatment gender differences persist despite improvements in physical and emotional functioning.
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Fibromyalgia (FM), a disorder characterized by diffuse pain, fatigue, and a variety of other symptoms, is thought to derive from dysfunction of the central nervous system. Neuromodulation is a technique to treat pain from a variety of causes, including disorders of the central nervous system (CNS). Occipital nerve stimulation is a neuromodulation technique currently under study to treat various migraine headache disorders. This study examines a technique of neurostimulation that appears to affect the pain and symptoms of FM. ⋯ C2 area scalp stimulation may diminish pain and related symptoms in patients with FM.
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Meralgia paresthetica (MP), coined from the Greek words meros (thigh and algos), meaning pain, is a neurological disorder characterized by a localized area of paresthesia and numbness on the anterolateral aspect of the thigh. The incidence of MP is more common than often reported in the literature. The etiology of MP includes mechanical factors such as obesity, pregnancy, and other conditions associated with increased intrabdominal pressure, surgery of the spine, and pelvic osteotomy. ⋯ While the diagnosis of MP is essentially a clinical diagnosis, sensory nerve conduction velocity studies are a useful adjunctive diagnostic tool. The management of MP includes treating the underlying cause (if any) and conservative management. Surgery should only be adopted when all nonoperative therapies have failed to manage the condition in an effective manner.