Articles: back-pain.
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Equine veterinary journal · Jan 2016
Epiduroscopy of the lumbosacral vertebral canal in the horse: Technique and endoscopic anatomy.
Back pain is a common cause of gait alterations and poor performance in horses, but the available imaging modalities are frequently insufficient to isolate the underlying pathology. In human patients, epidural endoscopy (epiduroscopy) is successfully used to diagnose and treat challenging cases of lower back pain. Endoscopy of the cervical epidural space has previously been reported in anaesthetised horses. ⋯ Lumbosacral epiduroscopy is technically feasible in standing horses and may become a valuable diagnostic tool in horses with caudal back or limb pain of unknown origin. Studies in live horses will be necessary to evaluate the safety of the procedure.
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Background. Through real-time behavioral observation systems, pain behaviors are commonly used by clinicians to estimate pain intensity in patients with low back pain. However, little is known about how clinicians rely on pain-related behaviors to make their judgment. ⋯ Discussion. The use of additive rule of integration does not appear to be systematic when assessing others' pain. When assessing pain intensity, communicative and protective pain behaviors may have different relevance.
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Does lumbar fusion lead to accelerated adjacent segment disc degeneration (ASDD) or is it explained by genetics and aging? The influence of genetics on ASDD remains to be explored. This study assesses whether the disc space height adjacent to a fused segment is associated with candidate gene single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). ⋯ Age was the most significant determinant of adjacent segment disc space height followed by genetic factors, specifically inflammatory genes. Fusion explained a statistically significant but small proportion of the total variance. Much of the variance remained to be explained.
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Background and Objective. Pain evaluation in children can be a difficult task, since it possesses sensory and affective components that are often hard to discriminate. Infrared thermography has previously been used as a diagnostic tool for pain detection in animals; therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the presence of temperature changes during dental extractions and to evaluate its correlation with heart rate changes as markers of pain and discomfort. ⋯ Thermographic changes in the lacrimal caruncle can be detected in patients who undergo dental extractions. These changes appear to be stable throughout time and to possess very little intersubject variation, thus making them a candidate for a surrogate marker of pain and discomfort. Future studies should be performed to confirm this claim.
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Retrospective. ⋯ 2.