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To inform migraine care model development by assessing differences between patients with chronic migraine (CM) and episodic migraine (EM) in the current state of treatment, disability, patient satisfaction, and quality improvement opportunities.
Learn More >Chronic postsurgical knee-pain (CPSP) is a burden for approx. 20% of the patients following total knee replacement (TKR). Presurgical pain intensities have consistently been found associated with CPSP and it is suggested that e.g. comorbidities are likewise important for development of CPSP. This study aimed to identify presurgical risk factors for development of CPSP 5 years after TKR based on medical records containing information regarding comorbidities.
Learn More >Chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) is a major health concern. Opioids may be a useful treatment option, but their use still remains controversial given the significant risks and epidemic of opioid addiction and abuse. There is limited data on whether opioid therapy is an effective treatment option for chronic non-cancer pain.
Learn More >To investigate whether the two briefest validated ICF-based (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) tools can detect differences between different spinal conditions.
Learn More >Chronic pain affects 1 in 5 people and has been shown to disrupt attention. Here, we investigated whether pain disrupts everyday decision making. In Study 1, 1322 participants completed two tasks online: a shopping decisions task and a measure of decision outcomes over the previous 10 years. Participants who were in pain during the study made more errors on the shopping task than those who were pain-free. Participants with a recurrent pain condition reported more negative outcomes from their past decisions than those without recurrent pain. In Study 2, 44 healthy participants completed the shopping decisions task with and without experimentally-induced pain. Participants made more errors while in pain than while pain-free. We suggest that the disruptive effect of pain on attending translates into poorer decisions in more complex and ecologically valid contexts, that the effect is causal, and that the consequences are not only attentional, but financial.
Learn More >Co-prevalence of chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) negatively impacts the course of both disorders. Patients diagnosed with both conditions report greater pain, affective distress and disability when compared to those with either chronic pain or PTSD alone. While the prevalence and complexity of the comorbidity is widely acknowledged, there is a dearth of research examining potential mechanism variables that might account for the relationship between chronic pain and PTSD. The current study utilizes a series of mediation analyses to examine if pain catastrophizing mediates the relationship between PTSD symptomatology and chronic pain outcome.
Learn More >Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) at 5 Hz and 10 Hz is effective in improving pain, sleep quality, and anxiety among patients with postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). But it has not been reported which frequency is more effective and which frequency is safer.
Learn More >Based on previous clinic-based MRI studies showing regional differences in the cerebral cortex between those with and without headache, we hypothesized that headache sufferers have a decrease in volume, thickness or surface area in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), prefrontal cortex (PFC), and insula. In addition, exploratory analyses on volume, thickness and surface area across the cerebral cortical mantle were performed. 1006 participants (50-66 years) from the general population were selected to an imaging study of the head at 1.5 T (HUNT-MRI). 283 individuals suffered from headache, 80 with migraine and 87 with tension-type headache, whereas 309 individuals did not suffer from headache and were used as controls. T1 weighted 3D scans of the brain were analysed with voxel-based morphometry and FreeSurfer. The association between cortical volume, thickness and surface area and questionnaire-based headache diagnoses was evaluated, taking into consideration evolution of headache and frequency of attacks. There were no significant differences in cortical volume, thickness or surface area between headache sufferers and non-sufferers in ACC, PFC or insula. Similarly, the exploratory analyses across the cortical mantle demonstrated no significant differences in volume, thickness or surface area between any of the headache groups and the non-sufferers. Maps of effect sizes showed small differences in the cortical measures between headache sufferers and non-sufferers. Hence, there are probably no or only very small differences in volume, thickness or surface area of the cerebral cortex between those with and without headache in the general population.
Learn More >Patients with high-frequency episodic migraine (HFEM) have a greater disease burden than those with low-frequency episodic migraine (LFEM). Acute treatment overuse increases the risk of migraine chronification in patients with HFEM. Galcanezumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody binding calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), is effective for migraine prevention with a favorable safety profile. Here, we investigate whether there are differences in galcanezumab efficacy in patients with LFEM or with HFEM.
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