Articles: pain-management.
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The increasing demand for pain management and limited resources available highlight the need to measure treatment effectiveness. We analysed data collected at 75 specialist persistent pain services located in Australia and New Zealand to calculate the overall treatment outcome for patients receiving care during 2014 to 2020. Sociodemographic and clinical information was provided for 23,915 patients, along with patient-reported measures assessing pain, pain interference, depression, anxiety, stress, pain catastrophizing, and pain self-efficacy. ⋯ Multivariable logistic regression identified those factors associated with the different groups. In particular, factors most predictive of a poor (group 4) vs good outcome (group 1) were unemployment (due to pain or other reasons), requiring an interpreter, widespread pain, pain of longer duration, and attributing the pain to an injury at work. The results may allow identification of those most likely to benefit from the services currently provided and inform development of alternative or enhanced services for those at risk of a poor outcome.
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Minerva anestesiologica · May 2023
Acute and chronic pain management in sport medicine: an expert opinion looking at an alternative mechanism-based approach to the pharmacological treatment.
In the last decades there has been a huge increase in people who practice sports requesting an increase of the performance. Consequently, also incidence of acute and chronic pain is highly increased in this population of "healthy" people. Pain represents not only a signal of a lesion occurred during the sportive activity, but also (and almost) an unbalance of posture or an overuse of specific articulations or muscles, that has to be resolved not only with a correct physiotherapeutic approach, but also with a careful diagnosis of the complex mechanisms that sustain the pain. ⋯ Hence, the pain therapist assumes a pivotal role in the management of pain in people who practice sports, for his skills in pain diagnosis, and for the possibility to introduce new mechanism-based therapies. In the last decade, these new therapies, such as regenerative medicine and peripheral neuromodulation, have demonstrated their effectiveness not only to reduce pain, but also to facilitate the healing process and the faster return to the sportive activity. In this expert opinion we summarize the most recent data to support this approach, focalizing not only on how to treat specific pain syndromes but also on how pain therapist could drive, through a careful diagnosis of the pain mechanism, to a new simultaneous mechanism-based disease modifying approach in people with pain practicing sport.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2023
Case ReportsNovel use of continuous pericapsular nerve group (PENG) block technique for traumatic superior and inferior pubic rami fractures: a case report.
Pubic rami fractures are painful injuries more commonly seen in the elderly with osteoporosis after high velocity trauma. In the most cases, management is conservative and non-operative with the goal to provide optimal pain relief to facilitate early mobilization and hospital discharge. Unfortunately, opioids remain the mainstay analgesic option and regional anesthesia techniques are limited but may include lumbar epidural anesthesia. ⋯ Analgesia options are limited in pubic rami fractures. We present the first published case of a novel use of the PENG block with a continuous catheter technique for the analgesic management of a traumatic superior and inferior pubic rami fracture. The clinical utility of this technique in pubic ramus fractures warrants further clinical investigation.
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Pain management for patients with dementia is challenging because many experience pain while being unable to communicate their pain. The aim of this study was to describe pain, pain management, and to perform a thorough clinical examination of chronic pain conditions among patients with dementia. Residents (n = 498) from 12 nursing homes were assessed for dementia (Clinical Dementia Rating scale [CDR]) and for pain with the Mobilization-Observation-Behavior-Intensity-Dementia-2 (MOBID-2) assessment form. ⋯ Chronic widespread pain was the most prevalent (14.5%) followed by nonspecific pain from the back (13.4%), whereas the most prevalent chronic secondary pain conditions were chronic pain caused by osteoarthritis (15.4%) and stroke (8.0%). One-fourth received opioids, which was significantly associated with severe pain ( P < 0.001) compared with moderate pain, although no significant association was found between opioid use and the type of pain condition. Although knowledge of the severity and specific types of pain conditions is recommended to direct the choice of treatment, these areas are not sufficiently explored in the nursing home populations with dementia and may hinder a better treatment of pain in this population.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2023
Sarcopenia is associated with an increase in long-term use of analgesics after elective surgery under general anesthesia.
To elucidate the association of presurgical sarcopenia and long-term non-opioid analgesic and opioid use after elective surgery under general anesthesia. ⋯ The aim of this study was to compare the long-term use of non-opioid analgesics and opioids after elective surgery under general anesthesia between patients with and without sarcopenia. Results suggest that patients with sarcopenia are more likely to have increased use of non-opioid analgesics and opioids after surgery. Further research is needed to determine if sarcopenia can be modified prior to surgery and if this impacts the need for long-term pain management with these medications.