Articles: chronic-pain.
-
An emerging concept in the chronic pain literature, high-impact chronic pain (HICP), refers to pain that occurs very frequently and results in major disruption of daily life. Previous epidemiologic investigations have noted that lower educational attainment, age, and race appear to be associated with the frequency of HICP, but condition-specific investigations of HICP have been less common. ⋯ These findings suggest that HICP affects more than 1 out of 5 UCPPS patients, with significant associated morbidity. Demographic and clinical characteristics associated with HICP may be useful for identifying at-risk UCPPS patients.
-
Working memory impairments are common in chronic low back pain and are linked to increased pain severity. Reduced working memory may contribute to chronic pain by disrupting the ability to contextualize threat and modulate pain. These processes involve the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and its interaction with the periaqueductal gray. ⋯ This highlights cognitive-pain interactions and the potential of targeting working memory and this pathway for therapy. Perspective This article presents evidence that low working memory is associated with abnormalities in activations and connectivity in the pain modulation pathways in people with chronic low back pain. These changes predict chronic pain severity indicating a potential association between working memory, pain modulation pathways and chronic pain severity.
-
The surprising increase observed in recent years in the use of minimally invasive sacroiliac joint arthrodesis techniques as a treatment for low back pain justifies an objective review of this results. ⋯ Although the clinical results regarding the effectiveness of SIJ fusion are forceful for their effectiveness, we recommend considering some aspects for their analysis and especially long-term studies.