Scandinavian journal of pain
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Observational Study
Healthcare resource use and costs of opioid-induced constipation among non-cancer and cancer patients on opioid therapy: A nationwide register-based cohort study in Denmark.
Opioid analgesics are often effective for pain management, but may cause constipation. The aim of this study was to determine healthcare resource use and costs in non-cancer and cancer patients with opioid-induced constipation (OIC). ⋯ Reducing the number of OIC patients has potential cost savings for the health care system. Special attention should be on patients at potential high risk of OIC, such as strong and long-term opioid treatment, advanced age, and concomitant cardiovascular disease.
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Persistent (chronic) pain is a common phenomenon in adolescents. When young people are referred to a pain clinic, they usually have amplified pain signals, with pain syndromes of unconfirmed ethology, such as fibromyalgia and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). Pain is complex and seems to be related to a combination of illness, injury, psychological distress, and environmental factors. These young people are found to have higher levels of distress, anxiety, sleep disturbance, and lower mood than their peers and may be in danger of entering adulthood with mental and physical problems. In order to understand the complexity of persistent pain in adolescents, there seems to be a need for further qualitative research into their lived experiences. The aim of this study was to explore adolescents' experiences of complex persistent pain and its impact on everyday life. ⋯ These findings may encourage healthcare providers to perceive adolescents' persistent pain through the lenses of a biopsychosocial approach. We suggest that further research into adolescents with persistent pain should include longitudinal studies of quality of life and gender perspectives.
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Research indicates that mirror therapy reduces phantom limb pain (PLP). Objectives were to determine when mirror therapy works in those who respond to treatment, the relevance of baseline PLP to when pain relief occurs, and what pain symptoms respond to mirror therapy. ⋯ This article indicates that the degree of baseline PLP affects when mirror therapy relieves pain: relief occurs by session 7 in patients with low PLP but by session 21 in patients with high PLP. Clinicians should anticipate slower pain relief in patients who begin treatment with high levels of pain. ClinicalTrials.gov numbers:NCT00623818 and NCT00662415.
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Pain after surgery is not uncommon with 30% of patients reporting moderate to severe postoperative pain. Early identification of patients prone to postoperative pain may be a step forward towards individualized pain medicine providing a basis for improved clinical management through treatment strategies targeting relevant pain mechanisms in each patient. Assessment of pain processing by quantitative sensory testing (QST) prior to surgery has been proposed as a method to identify patients at risk for postoperative pain, although results have been conflicting. Since the last systematic review, several studies investigating the association between postoperative pain and more dynamic measures of pain processing like temporal summation of pain and conditioned pain modulation have been conducted. ⋯ Although preoperative QST does not show consistent results, future studies in this area should include assessment of central pain mechanisms like temporal summation of pressure pain, conditioned pain modulation, and responses to pain above the pain threshold since these variables show promising associations to pain after surgery.
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Patients suffering from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) of the upper limb show a changed cortical representation of the affected hand. The lip area invades the former hand area contralateral to the affected hand. This change in cortical representation is correlated to the intensity of ongoing pain in patients with CRPS. Further studies revealed that restoration of the original representation coincides with a decrease of pain. Sensory-motor training protocols can increase and/or relocate cortical somatosensory and motor representation areas of the fingers, as shown, for example, in Braille reading individuals and professional violin players. Further, there is evidence that sensory-motor discrimination training has a beneficial effect on both the intensity of pain and the mislocalization of sensory-motor cortical areas in CRPS patients. Based on these propositions, we developed a novel sensory-motor self-training paradigm for CRPS patients to use in a home-based manner. ⋯ Although a larger study needs to be conducted to confirm our findings, including long-term follow-up, the results show, that a sensory-motor home-based training is a strategy worth exploring further for the reduction of pain as well as high frequency training for patients with CRPS.