Articles: chronic-pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Fluoroscopic cervical interlaminar epidural injections in managing chronic pain of cervical postsurgery syndrome: preliminary results of a randomized, double-blind, active control trial.
Cervical postsurgery syndrome is common with increasing cervical surgical interventions. Cervical spine surgery may fail in a certain proportion of patients with continued pain secondary to pseudoarthrosis, adjacent segment degeneration, inadequate decompression, iatrogenic instability, facet joint arthritis, deformity, and spinal stenosis. Among the various treatments available for managing cervical postsurgery syndrome, epidural steroid injections are one of the most common nonsurgical interventions. However there have not been any systematic evaluations regarding the effectiveness of cervical epidural injections in cervical postsurgery syndrome. ⋯ NCT01071369.
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Valid and reliable assessment of pain is fundamental for both clinical trials and effective pain management. The nature of pain makes objective measurement impossible. Chronic musculoskeletal pain assessment and its impact on physical, emotional and social functions require multidimensional qualitative tools and healthrelated quality of life instruments. ⋯ Despite the growing availability of instruments and theoretical publications related to measuring the various aspects of chronic pain, there is still little agreement and no unified approach has been devised. There is, therefore, still a considerable need for the development of a core set of measurement tools and response criteria, as well as for the development and refinement of the related instruments, standardized assessor training, the cross-cultural adaptation of health status questionnaires, electronic data capture, and the introduction of valid, reliable and responsive standardized quantitative measurement procedures into routine clinical care. This article reviews a selection of the instruments used to assess chronic musculoskeletal pain, including validated newly developed and well-established screening instruments, and discusses their advantages and limitations.
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Controlled Clinical Trial
Pain ratings, psychological functioning and quantitative EEG in a controlled study of chronic back pain patients.
Several recent studies report the presence of a specific EEG pattern named Thalamocortical Dysrhythmia (TCD) in patients with severe chronic neurogenic pain. This is of major interest since so far no neuroscientific indicator of chronic pain could be identified. We investigated whether a TCD-like pattern could be found in patients with moderate chronic back pain, and we compared patients with neuropathic and non-neuropathic pain components. We furthermore assessed the presence of psychopathology and the degree of psychological functioning and examined whether the strength of the TCD-related EEG markers is correlated with psychological symptoms and pain ratings. ⋯ Out of several possible interpretations the most likely conclusion is that only patients with severe pain as well as root lesions with consecutive thalamic deafferentation develop the typical TCD pattern. Our primary method of defining 'neuropathic pain' could not reliably determine if such a deafferentation was present. Nevertheless the analysis of a specific subsample as well as correlations between pain ratings, psychopathology and EEG power and peak frequency give some support to the TCD concept.
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To compare the effects of tapentadol-extended release versus oxycodone-controlled release for pain relief on productivity by combining evidence from different sources. ⋯ Tapentadol was associated with increases in all productivity dimensions compared with oxycodone. Multiparameter evidence synthesis capitalizes on available evidence, so that better informed medical decisions can be made.
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Opioids constitute the basis for pharmacological treatment of moderate to severe pain in cancer pain and non-cancer pain patients. Their action is mediated by the activation of opioid receptors, which integrates the pain modulation system with other effects in the central nervous system including cognition resulting in complex interactions between pain, opioids and cognition. The literature on this complexity is sparse and information regarding the cognitive effects of opioids in chronic pain patients is substantially lacking. ⋯ Opioid treatment involved slightly opposite outcomes in the two patient groups: no effects or worsening of cognitive function in cancer pain patients and no effect or improvements in the chronic non-cancer pain patients, however, due to methodological limitations and a huge variety of designs definite conclusions are difficult to draw from the studies. In studies of higher quality of evidence opioid induced deficits in cognitive functioning were associated with dose increase and the use of supplemental doses of opioids in cancer patients. Future perspectives should comprise the conduction of high quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving relevant control groups and validated neuropsychological assessments tools before and after opioid treatment in order to further explore the complex interaction between pain, opioids and cognition.