Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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To conduct a comprehensive search for evidence with regard to whether central sensitization after an injury can act as a persistent autonomous pain generator after the inducing injury has healed. ⋯ We found no evidence proving that central sensitization can persist as an autonomous pain generator after the initiating injury has healed. Our review has also shown that the evidential basis for the diagnosis of central sensitization in individual patients is seriously in question.
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Advanced age is associated with a higher risk of both pain and dementia, with many studies finding that dementia often heightens sensitivity to pain. Vascular dementia (VaD) is the second most common type of dementia. Only a few observational or retrospective studies have examined pain responsiveness in VaD, suggesting that it could increase pain unpleasantness (i.e., pain affect). This study compared thermal pain psychophysics between a cohort of patients with VaD and healthy control (HC) subjects. ⋯ These results are consistent with prior observational findings suggesting that VaD could make patients more susceptible to pain, particularly its affective component.