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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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.
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Some patients with lumbar herniated intervertebral disc disease (HIVD) suffer from both pain and lateral shift or trunk list. In addition to pain, patients have concerns regarding whether trunk list is reversible. Surgical treatment is performed when pain is intractable to conservative management, but a reversal of trunk list is an incidental outcome. Percutaneous lumbar endoscopic discectomy (PELD) is one of the surgical treatment options for lumbar HIVD, but no results concerning its effect on trunk list have been reported. ⋯ Trunk list, scoliosis or lateral shift, was observed in 18% of the patients at the time of surgery. Female gender and L4-5 disc herniation were risk factors for trunk list. Trunk list was reversible in more than 50% of patients within 6 months of PELD.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effect of High-Volume Injectate in Lumbar Transforaminal Epidural Steroid Injections: A Randomized, Active Control Trial.
There have been many studies proving the effectiveness of lumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections (TFESIs) for the treatment of radicular pain. Dexamethasone has been suggested as an alternative to particulate steroids. However, no controlled trials have investigated the effect of different injected volumes for a same dose of dexamethasone. ⋯ Injectate at a volume of 8 mL was more effective than injectate at a volume of 3 mL for radicular pain in a lumbar transforaminal steroid injection, although both of the injectates contained the same dose of dexamethasone.