Articles: low-back-pain.
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Observational Study
Adding Physical Impairment to Risk Stratification Improved Outcome Prediction in Low Back Pain.
Identifying subgroups of low back pain (LBP) has the potential to improve prediction of clinical outcomes. Risk stratification is one such strategy that identifies similar characteristics indicative of a common clinical outcome trajectory. The purpose of this study was to determine if an empirically derived subgrouping approach based on physical impairment measures improves information provided from the STarT Back Tool (SBT). ⋯ Subgroups based on physical impairment and psychosocial risk could lead to better prediction of LBP disability outcomes and eventually allow for treatment options tailored to physical and psychosocial risk.
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MicroRNAs play an essential role in regulating pain processing within a wide range of clinical pain disorders. ⋯ In older adults with vitamin D deficiency, the severity of LBP was significantly associated with the expression of circulating miRNAs, adiposity, bone metabolism, inflammation, and muscle performance. In addition, the expressed miRNAs, along with other LBP cofounders, were significantly associated with ∼63.9-86.4% of the incidence of LBP in older adults. These results suggest the possibility of using microRNAs as therapeutics to alleviate established pain and as biomarkers in old adults with painful conditions.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effects of the Multidimensional Treatment on Pain, Disability, and Sitting Posture in Patients with Low Back Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of multidimensional approach model on the pain, disability, and sitting posture in patients with nonspecific low back pain (LBP). Sixty LBP patients were recruited and were randomly divided into two groups: multidimensional treatment (MT) group (n = 30) and unimodal treatment (UT) group (n = 30). All participants underwent 48 sessions of treatment (40 min/session, two sessions per day, 2 days per week) for 12 weeks. ⋯ In the MT group, the pain relief effect persisted 3 months after the end of training. Thoracolumbar kyphosis and lumbar lordosis in the MT group were significantly improved compared to the UT group (p < 0.05). Thus, MT combined with core stability exercise may be used to improve the pain, disability, and sitting posture in patients with LBP.
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Medial branch nerve block (MBB) and facet joint injections (FJIs) can be used to manage axial low back pain. Although there have been studies comparing the MBB and FJI effects, a few studies have compared the therapeutic effects of both interventions combined with each separate intervention. This study aimed to compare the pain relief effect of MBB, FJI, and combined treatment with MBB and FJI in patients with axial low back pain. ⋯ MBB, FJI, and combined treatment with MBB and FJI can reduce axial low back pain and improve secondary functional degradation. Although combined treatment with MBB and FJI required a longer intervention time, it did not have a pain relief effect superior to that of MBB or FJI alone.
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Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is often treated with opioid analgesics (OA), a class of medications associated with a significant risk of misuse. However, little is known about how treatment with OA affect the brain in chronic pain patients. Gaining this knowledge is a necessary first step towards understanding OA associated analgesia and elucidating long-term risk of OA misuse. ⋯ CLBP patients medicated with OA showed loss of volume in the nucleus accumbens and thalamus, and an overall significant decrease in signal to noise ratio in their sub-cortical areas. Power spectral density analysis (PSD) of frequency content in the accumbens' resting state activity revealed that both medicated and unmedicated patients showed loss of PSD within the slow-5 frequency band (0.01-0.027 Hz) while only CLBP patients on OA showed additional density loss within the slow-4 frequency band (0.027-0.073 Hz). We conclude that chronic treatment with OA is associated with altered brain structure and function within sensory limbic areas.