Best practice & research. Clinical rheumatology
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Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol · Feb 2015
ReviewMeta-analyses of pain studies: What we have learned.
Meta-analysis is a statistical procedure that integrates the results of at least two independent studies. The biggest threats to meta-analysis are publication bias due to missing studies with negative results and low-quality evidence due to methodological limitations imposed by included studies. ⋯ The benefit can be detected within 2-4 weeks following drug administration. Further, the efficacy of drug and physical treatments is hampered by high placebo response rates, with modest average benefits with active treatments over placebo in both parallel and crossover design trials.
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Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol · Feb 2015
ReviewPhysical exercise as non-pharmacological treatment of chronic pain: Why and when.
Chronic pain broadly encompasses both objectively defined conditions and idiopathic conditions that lack physical findings. Despite variance in origin or pathogenesis, these conditions are similarly characterized by chronic pain, poor physical function, mobility limitations, depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance, and they are treated alone or in combination by pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic approaches, such as physical activity (aerobic conditioning, muscle strengthening, flexibility training, and movement therapies). ⋯ For chronic pain, strict guidelines for physical activity are lacking, but frequent movement is preferable to sedentary behavior. This gives considerable freedom in prescribing physical activity treatments, which are most successful when tailored individually, progressed slowly, and account for physical limitations, psychosocial needs, and available resources.
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Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol · Feb 2015
ReviewDiagnosing and treating chronic musculoskeletal pain based on the underlying mechanism(s).
Until recently, most clinicians considered chronic pain to be typically due to ongoing peripheral nociceptive input (i.e., damage or inflammation) in the region of the body where the individual is experiencing pain. Clinicians are generally aware of a few types of pain (e.g., headache and phantom limb pain) where chronic pain is not due to such causes, but most do not realize there is not a single chronic pain state where any radiographic, surgical, or pathological description of peripheral nociceptive damage has been reproducibly shown to be related to the presence or severity of pain. ⋯ A critical construct is that, within any specific diagnostic category (e.g., fibromyalgia (FM), osteoarthritis (OA), and chronic low back pain (CLBP) are specifically reviewed), individual patients may have markedly different peripheral/nociceptive and neural contributions to their pain. Thus, just as low back pain has long been acknowledged to have multiple potential mechanisms, so also is this true of all chronic pain states, wherein some individuals will have pain primarily due to peripheral nociceptive input, whereas in others peripheral (e.g., peripheral sensitization) or central nervous system factors ("central sensitization" or "centralization" of pain via augmented pain processing in spinal and brain) may be playing an equally or even more prominent role in their pain and other symptoms.
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Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol · Feb 2015
Review"Real-life" treatment of chronic pain: Targets and goals.
Treating chronic pain is a complex challenge. While textbooks and medical education classically categorize pain as originating from peripheral (nociceptive), neuropathic, or centralized origins, in real life each and every patient may present a combination of various pain sources, types, and mechanisms. ⋯ Failing to recognize the coexistence of different types of pain in an individual patient and escalating medications only on the basis of total pain intensity are liable to lead to both ineffective control of pain and increased untoward effects. In the current review, we outline strategies for deconstructing complex pain and therapeutic suggestions.
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Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol · Feb 2015
ReviewThe words of pain in complex regional pain syndrome.
Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) encompasses a wide range of painful conditions, but it is characterised by continuing (spontaneous and/or evoked) limb pain that is seemingly disproportionate in time or degree to the usual course of any known trauma or other lesion. The pain is regional, with distal predominance usually but not related to a specific nerve territory or dermatome, and it is usually associated with abnormal sensory, motor, sudomotor, vasomotor and/or trophic findings. The complexity of the aetiopathogenetic factors making up the clinical picture of CRPS is mirrored by the inconsistency of almost all of the monotherapies used to treat it so far. Motor and sensory symptoms significantly interfere with the patients' daily function and quality of life, and almost all of them report substantial disability in their working and recreational activities, mood and mobility.