Articles: back-pain.
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Br J Health Psychol · Sep 2017
'I call it stinkin' thinkin'': A qualitative analysis of metacognition in people with chronic low back pain and elevated catastrophizing.
Pain catastrophizing is widely studied in quantitative pain research because of its strong link with poor pain outcomes, although the exact nature of this construct remains unclear. Focusing on its ruminative dimension, the present qualitative study aimed to explore a nascent aspect of pain catastrophizing - metacognition - by documenting people's attitudes towards rumination and examining how these metacognitions might influence the course it takes. ⋯ While most participants described pain rumination as uncontrollable and harmful, dwelling on pain could be helpful when focused on tangible and solvable problems, thereby translating into adaptive coping behaviours that eventually interrupt rumination. Future treatments may be more effective if they are based on individualized formulations of pain catastrophizing that focus on its perseverative nature and implicit function. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Chronic pain affects one in five people, and psychological coping responses are key targets within gold standard biopsychosocial interventions. People who have elevated pain catastrophizing tend to have worse pain outcomes, including increased pain, disability, and emotional distress. What people believe about their own thinking (i.e., their metacognitions) influences how much they worry or ruminate. What does this study add? This is the first qualitative study exploring metacognitions in people with chronic pain and the first to target a purposive sample of people with elevated pain catastrophizing. People with elevated pain catastrophizing often see rumination as uncontrollable and harmful but may simultaneously believe it helps them to solve problems or feel prepared for future threats. Pain catastrophizing is not a stable and enduring trait but fluctuates both within and across individuals in response to pain, context, metacognitive beliefs about rumination, and coping behaviours.
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The choice of appropriate treatment of discogenic low back pain (DLBP) frequently is difficult. This study sought to identify the clinical efficacy of percutaneous endoscopic lumbar annuloplasty and nucleoplasty (PELAN) to treat patients with DLBP and to investigate prognostic clinical or radiologic variables. ⋯ PELAN provided favorable outcomes in patients with DLBP who were refractory to conservative treatments. Flexion pain was good prognostic, and Modic change was a poor prognostic variable.
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Does feeling back stiffness actually reflect having a stiff back? This research interrogates the long-held question of what informs our subjective experiences of bodily state. We propose a new hypothesis: feelings of back stiffness are a protective perceptual construct, rather than reflecting biomechanical properties of the back. This has far-reaching implications for treatment of pain/stiffness but also for our understanding of bodily feelings. ⋯ Rather, those who report feeling stiff exhibit self-protective responses: they significantly overestimate force applied to their spine, yet are better at detecting changes in this force than those who do not report feeling stiff. This perceptual error can be manipulated: providing auditory input in synchrony to forces applied to the spine modulates prediction accuracy in both groups, without altering actual stiffness, demonstrating that feeling stiff is a multisensory perceptual inference consistent with protection. Together, this presents a compelling argument against the prevailing view that feeling stiff is an isomorphic marker of the biomechanical characteristics of the back.
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American family physician · Aug 2017
Top POEMs of 2016 Consistent with the Principles of the Choosing Wisely Campaign.
A challenge in the Choosing Wisely campaign is to identify low-value clinical actions supported by high-quality evidence. We applied a method based on crowdsourcing the Daily POEM (patient-oriented evidence that matters) to identify low-value clinical actions from research studies consistent with the principles of Choosing Wisely. In 2016, we analyzed an average of 1,382 questionnaires on 265 unique POEMs delivered to physician members of the Canadian Medical Association. ⋯ These recommendations fall into the categories of musculoskeletal conditions (e.g., degenerative meniscal tears, chronic low back pain), cardiovascular disease (e.g., chronic stable angina, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction), respiratory disease (e.g., pneumonia, asthma exacerbations), and preventive care (e.g., screening for lung, colorectal, or ovarian cancer). Based on the results of the studies, these recommendations describe interventions whose benefits are not superior to other options, are sometimes more expensive, or put patients at increased risk of harm. Knowing more about these POEMs and their connection with the Choosing Wisely campaign will help clinicians and their patients engage in conversations better informed by high-quality evidence.
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A cohort study. ⋯ 3.