Articles: pain-measurement.
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This study examined the relationship of pain drawings to somatization in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). Sixty-nine adult patients with SCD completed a pain drawing in which they shaded in areas of the body in which they experienced pain and also completed the symptom checklist (SCL) 90-R as an index of psychological distress. ⋯ The results suggest that health care professionals who treat SCD patients need to consider pain patterns. In individuals with pain patterns atypical for SCD, the psychological status of the patient may need to be evaluated to facilitate optimal pain management.
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Both the Harris and the Charnley hip evaluation forms were applied to 191 ingrowth-type total hip arthroplasties in an attempt to determine the effectiveness of the hip score as an indicator of success following arthroplasty. The Harris form demonstrated significantly lower pain scores than the Charnley form and, consequently, failed patients more often due to pain. However, it is important to note that 32% of the hips that failed due to pain on the Harris form did not fail due to total score. This inconsistency prompts the authors to state that when using a hip form to evaluate the performance of a prosthesis, especially one of the ingrowth type, it is important to consider not only the average total score but also the percentage of patients still experiencing significant pain.
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This study investigated whether pain sensitivity of the pericranial musculature remains constant over the course of the day. Changes in the entire, uniformly metrically divided suprathreshold sensitivity range were measured. In 24 healthy volunteer subjects, pain was induced experimentally at 0200, 0600, 1000, 1400, 1800, and 2200 hours in the pericranial musculature. ⋯ Sensitivity to very intense headache, however, varied significantly over the course of the day: sensitivity was greatest at 0200 hours; it decreased at a constant rate until 1400 hours, and increased again continuously until 2200 hours (p less than or equal to .05). Also the findings showed significant effects of sex on the pain sensitivity of pericranial musculature for all pain intensities: women are approx. twice as sensitive as men (p less than or equal to 0.05). These results suggest that not only sex, but also time of day, must be taken into consideration in the clinical determination of pain sensitivity of pericranial musculature in the course of headache diagnostics.
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Research has indicated that approximately three-quarters of patients in acute care hospitals experience moderate to severe pain. It is thought that inadequately controlled pain is the result of poor clinical performance on the part of nurses and physicians. Faculty knowledge about pain mechanisms and pharmacology have been targeted as the source of their poor performance. ⋯ This study examined some of the misconceptions nurses have about addiction and pain management. A number of fallacies were identified. These included a very strong opiophobia or fallacy about addiction liability of narcotics even under conditions of normal hospital use.
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Journal of neurosurgery · Jun 1990
Normal and radiculopathic cutaneous pain tolerance levels evaluated by heat-beam dolorimetry.
The heat-beam dolorimeter has previously been used to obtain cutaneous pain tolerance measures in normal volunteers and patients with chronic pain. In the present study, normal reference data were collected at two stimulus intensities for 24 volunteers, and the stimulus-effect relationship (decreasing tolerance latency with increasing stimulus intensity) was found significant (p less than 0.001) for all body sites tested. No overall sex differences were found; males behaved slightly more stoically than females, with differences significant only at the T3 site over the breasts. ⋯ No significant lateral asymmetry was found in cutaneous pain tolerance except at the dorsum of the hand: the right hand evinced elevated pain tolerance compared with the left hand in both right- and left-handed subjects. Eight radiculopathic pain patients with clinically involved left L5 nerve roots were evaluated and their responses were compared with the volunteer normal reference data. The radiculopathic group evinced elevated tolerance levels in both the radiculopathic dermatome and noninvolved sites compared with normal individuals (p less than 0.05).