Articles: pain.
-
Journal of neurosurgery · Mar 1978
Percutaneous epidural stimulation of the spinal cord for relief of pain. Long-term results.
Percutaneous epidural stimulation of the spinal cord was carried out in 20 patients with intractable pain. The procedure proved simple, and no major complications were encountered. The long-term results were comparable to the results obtained after a dorsal column stimulator implant by laminectomy. ⋯ Those patients in whom stimulation did not alleviate pain could be identified during a 2-week observation period, and the system could be removed easily. Seven patients were placed on chronic autostimulation and only one of those failed to experience continuing pain relief throughout the follow-up time of up to 2 years. It is concluded that percutaneous epidural stimulation constitutes a valid alternative to dorsal column stimulator implantation.
-
An implanted brain stimulation system can be used for control of chronic intractable pain that is unresponsive to other forms of treatment. A trial period of temporary stimulation first determines whether a patient is likely to benefit from a permanent implant. Success has been achieved in the majority of patients, although technical problems have necessitated repairs.
-
Recent pain research advances show promise in their application to the relief of acute and chronic clinical dental pain. Regional electroanalgesia, or transcutaneous electrical stimulation, has been used successfully in the treatment of pain associated with peripheral nerve injuries. Electrical stimulation of teeth also may prove useful as a pain control technique during operative dentistry procedures. ⋯ By using cross-modality matching procedures, specific numerical values can be calculated for each verbal descriptor. These scales have been used to measure the intensity and unpleasantness associated with tooth pulp evoked experimental and clinical pain, and should be extremely useful in the evaluation of acute and chronic dental pain. They will be important experimental and clinical adjuncts in determining the efficacy of non-pharmacological pain control methods such as regional electroanalgesia, biofeedback, relaxation-suggestion and hypnosis.
-
Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Pain and clinical thrombophlebitis following intravenous diazepam and lorazepam.
Eighty-seven per cent of surgical patients receiving undiluted diazepam experienced pain on injection while 6-16%, depending on the dose, manifested evidence of clinical thrombophlebitis. This was improved when diazepam, 10 mg, was diluted to 20-40 ml with intravenous solution. In contrast, lorazepam appeared to have minimal irritative or injurious effects on veins whether undiluted or diluted. In view of these results and clinical studies reporting a higher patient acceptance of lorazepam than diazepam, lorazepam may be a superior drug for use in anaesthesia.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
A double-blind comparison of nefopam and placebo in post-operative pain.
Nefopam (90 mg), an analgesic, was compared with placebo in a double-blind trial in patients who had undergone total abdominal hysterectomy operations. Analgesic activity was assessed by patients rating their pain before and 1 hour after administration of each treatment, by sequential analysis of patient and observer preference for treatment, and by calculation of the time interval between doses of the two treatments. Nefopam was found by observer preference to be significantly better than placebo in relieving post-operative pain. In patients with severe initial pain, the time between doses after nefopam was significantly longer than after placebo.