Articles: pain-measurement.
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Dec 2018
Comparative StudyThe power of N-PASS, aEEG, and BIS in detecting different levels of sedation in neonates: A preliminary study.
Sedatives are essential drugs in every intensive care unit in order to ensure the patient's optimal level of comfort. Avoiding conditions of over- and under-sedation is a challenge in a neonatal intensive care setting. Drug administration could be optimized by the concomitant use of objective methods to assess the level of sedation. ⋯ While none of the three methods alone was able to precisely differentiate between different levels of sedation, we suggest that using a combination of amplitude-integrated Electroencephalogram and Neonatal Pain, Agitation and Sedation Scale can be useful to distinguish between light and deep sedation in neonatal patients.
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Several species of jellyfish native to the western Indian Ocean have entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal. Since the late 1980s, each summer Rhopilema nomadica forms swarms as long as 100 km in the southeastern Levant and since the millennium aggregations of additional nonnative jellyfish have been sighted. The aim of this study was to evaluate children seen in the emergency department after jellyfish envenomations and to establish patterns of toxicity associated with this organism. ⋯ The prevalence of the jellyfish swarms and the severity of clinical manifestations because of their envenomations suggest that it should be considered as a health hazard in the Mediterranean Sea. We call for public health authorities in affected countries to initiate a health hazards database, familiarize medical and healthcare staff with the clinical syndromes, train medical and healthcare staff` in appropriate treatment, and initiate and continue public awareness campaigns.
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High intensity of acute postsurgical pain is one of the strongest predictors of chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP). We investigated if different types of patients with distinct combinations of initial pain intensity and rate of pain resolution exhibit different risks for increased pain intensity six months after surgery. ⋯ In this study, we demonstrated that there is substantial variation in postsurgical pain trajectories, not only with regard to postsurgical initial pain intensity, but also with regard to individual rates of pain resolution. Successful pain resolution appeared to be a better predictor of absence of increased pain intensities six months after surgery than initial pain immediately after surgery. Hence, attention should be given to appropriate pain treatment in order to minimize the risk of CPSP.
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The self-reported Pain Sensitivity Questionnaire (PSQ) is a valid supplement to experimental pain testing. However, the latent constructs determining the originally proposed 1 general score (PSQ-total) and 2 subscores (PSQ-moderate and PSQ-minor) have not been consistently investigated in population-based studies or between genders. Based on a single construct hypothesized by expert knowledge or alternative constructs upon empirical evidence, PSQ structures were explored and confirmed among 4,820 participants aged 18 to 93 years of the Cooperative Health Research In South Tyrol (CHRIS) study. ⋯ PERSPECTIVE: One dominant latent construct of general pain sensitivity consistently determines responses to the self-reported PSQ. The PSQ-short score maintains similar psychometric properties to the PSQ-total and between genders. This measure is attractive for large-scale research and clinical screening of pain sensitivity.