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As more patients undergo lumbar spine surgery, novel interventions may improve physical and mental health outcomes. Few studies summarize the benefit of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) among lumbar spine surgery patients. This study collects randomized control trial data to investigate the influence of CBT on patient reported outcomes among lumbar spine surgery patients.
Learn More >Individuals with obesity frequently contend with chronic pain, but few studies address the clinical impact of coordinated pain services on this population. The current study addresses this topic by comparing the effectiveness of a comprehensive pain rehabilitation program for patients with and without obesity.
Learn More >To present a hypothesis on a novel strategy in the treatment of fibromyalgia (FM).
Learn More >Distal sensory polyneuropathy (DSP) is a disabling consequence of HIV, leading to poor quality of life and more frequent falls in older age. Neuropathic pain and paresthesia are prevalent symptoms, however there are currently no known curative treatments and the longitudinal course of pain in HIV-associated DSP is poorly characterized.
Learn More >People with chronic neck pain (CNP) often present with altered gait kinematics. This paper investigates, combines, and compares the kinematic features from linear and nonlinear walking trajectories to design supervised machine learning models which differentiate asymptomatic individuals from those with CNP. For this, 126 features were extracted from seven body segments of 20 asymptomatic subjects and 20 individuals with non-specific CNP. Neighbourhood Component Analysis (NCA) was used to identify body segments and the corresponding significant features which have the maximum discriminative power for conducting classification. We assessed the efficacy of NCA combined with K- Nearest Neighbour (K-NN), Support Vector Machine and Linear Discriminant Analysis. By applying NCA, all classifiers increased their performance for both linear and nonlinear walking trajectories. Notably, features selected by NCA which magnify the classification power of the computational model were solely from the head, trunk and pelvis kinematics. Our results revealed that the nonlinear trajectory provides the best classification performance through the NCA-K-NN algorithms with an accuracy of 90%, specificity of 100% and sensitivity of 83.3%. The selected features by NCA are introduced as key biomarkers of gait kinematics for classifying non-specific CNP. This paper provides insight into changes in gait kinematics which are present in people with non-specific CNP which can be exploited for classification purposes. The result highlights the importance of curvilinear gait kinematic features which potentially could be utilized in future research to predict recurrent episodes of neck pain.
Learn More >Lasmiditan is a selective serotonin (5-HT1F) receptor agonist approved in the US for the acute treatment ofmigraine in adults. This phase I, open-label, two-cohort study assessed the pharmacokinetics (PK), safety, and tolerability of lasmiditan in patients with migraine aged 6 to < 18 years.
Learn More >The objective of this study was to analyze the cross-sectional and longitudinal association between pain catastrophizing and opioid misuse, opioid use, and opioid dose in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. For this systematic review, CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, PubMed, manual searches, and grey literature were searched from inception to May 2020. Observational studies were included if they evaluated the association between pain catastrophizing and opioid dose, opioid use, and/or opioid misuse in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Two reviewers independently performed the study selection, data extraction, risk of bias assessment, and the certainty of the evidence judgment. Seven observational studies (all cross-sectional designs) satisfied the eligibility criteria, with a total sample of 2,160 participants. Pain catastrophizing was associated with opioid misuse. The results were inconsistent regarding the association between pain catastrophizing and opioid use. A lack of association was found considering pain catastrophizing and the opioid dose. However, the presence of risk of bias and imprecision was serious across the included studies, and therefore, the overall certainty of the evidence was judged as very low for all the outcome measures. This report concludes that pain catastrophizing seem to be associated with opioid misuse in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. However, the very low certainty of the current evidence confers to interpret the finding of this review as exclusively informative. PERSPECTIVE: This article shows that pain catastrophizing seem to be associated with opioid misuse in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. The overall certainty of the evidence was judged to be very low, thus, these results should be interpreted with caution.
Learn More >Major thermal burn injuries result in approximately 40,000 hospitalizations in the United States each year. Chronic pain affects up to 60% of burn survivors, Black Americans have worse chronic pain outcomes than White Americans. Mechanisms of chronic pain pathogenesis after burn injury, and accounting for these racial differences, remain poorly understood. Due to socioeconomic disadvantage and differences in skin absorption, Black Americans have an increased prevalence of Vitamin D deficiency. We hypothesized that peritraumatic Vitamin D levels predict chronic pain outcomes after burn injury and contribute to racial differences in pain outcomes. Among burn survivors (n=77, 52% White, 48% Black, 77% male), peritraumatic Vitamin D levels were more likely to be deficient in Blacks vs. Whites (27/37 (73%) vs. 14/40 (35%), p<.001). Peritraumatic Vitamin D levels were inversely associated with chronic post-burn pain outcomes across all burn injury survivors, including those who were and were not Vitamin D deficient, and accounted for approximately 1/3 of racial differences in post-burn pain outcome. Future studies are needed to evaluate potential mechanisms mediating the effect of Vitamin D on post-burn pain outcomes and the potential efficacy of Vitamin D in improving pain outcomes and reducing racial differences.
Learn More >For patients diagnosed with a rare musculoskeletal or neuromuscular disease, pain may transition from acute to chronic; the latter yielding additional challenges for both patients and care providers. We assessed the present understanding of pain across a set of ten rare, noninfectious, noncancerous disorders; Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Achondroplasia, Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, Fibrous Dysplasia/McCune-Albright Syndrome, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Infantile- and Late-Onset Pompe disease, Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Through the integration of natural history, cross-sectional, retrospective, clinical trials, & case studies we described pathologic and genetic factors, pain sources, phenotypes, and lastly, existing therapeutic approaches. We highlight that while rare diseases possess distinct core pathologic features, there are a number of shared pain phenotypes and mechanisms that may be prospectively examined and therapeutically targeted in a parallel manner. Finally, we describe clinical and research approaches that may facilitate more accurate diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of pain as well as elucidation of the evolving nature of pain phenotypes in rare musculoskeletal or neuromuscular illnesses.
Learn More >Osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee is a common cause of chronic pain. The currently available analgesics have limited efficacy and may be poorly tolerated.
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