Pain physician
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Chronic pain is very common worldwide and can lead to disability, depression and absence from work. Catastrophizing has been proven to affect individuals' belief systems and coping strategies, and it is an essential risk factor for chronic pain. The pain catastrophizing scale (PCS) has been developed for the assessment of catastrophizing. However, a Chinese version of this scale is not available, and physicians are therefore unable to determine which patients are prone to catastrophizing. Additionally, the risk factors for catastrophizing are unknown. ⋯ The PCS has been linguistically translated into simplified Chinese and culturally adapted for a Chinese population with remarkable clinical acceptance, good construct validity, and excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Education, pain duration, marital status, gender, income, and use of pain medications are important factors affecting catastrophizing.
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The close anatomic and functional relationship between the proximal parts of the adductor longus and pectineus muscles produce considerable overlap in symptoms and signs in the inguinal region. To our knowledge, there have been no publications of ultrasound (US)-guided injection techniques into the 2 muscles. ⋯ The results of this study may play a role in the diagnosis and management of patients presenting with chronic pelvic pain syndrome and sports hernia.
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Percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) is widely used for the treatment of painful vertebral compression fractures (VCFs). However, new VCFs occur frequently after PVP. ⋯ Patients who underwent their first PVP with an ANVCFV score > 8.5 points may exhibit an increased chance of suffering from new VCFs.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Acupuncture-Analgesia Following a Single Treatment Session in Chronic Whiplash is Unrelated to Autonomic Nervous System Changes: A Randomized Cross-over Trial.
An acupuncture treatment can reduce pain sensitivity in patients with chronic whiplash associated disorders (WAD). But it has been hypothesized that many of the experimental results in acupuncture research could be interpreted as stress-induced analgesia. ⋯ In patients with chronic WAD, in response to a single treatment session, no acupuncture specific effects on the autonomic response to pain assessment were present and the analgesia after one session of acupuncture is not caused by stress-induced analgesia but is more likely the result of an acupuncture specific reaction.