The network of arteries supplying blood flow to the brain is more likely to be incomplete in people who suffer migraine, a new study by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania reports.
An animal study in the August issue of Anesthesiology suggests that higher-frequency electric current stimulation of the spinal cord reduced pain quicker and better reached nerves not affected by traditionally used frequencies.
University of Washington engineers have developed a device that tracks how much a person's limb swells and shrinks when inside a prosthetic socket. The data could help doctors and patients predict how and when their limbs will swell, which could be used to build smarter sockets.
Researchers have developed a reliable way to use a finger-stick blood sample to detect fibromyalgia syndrome, a complicated pain disorder that often is difficult to diagnose.
Data detail birth outcomes in difficult-to-treat population.
Studies examine disparities in sociodemographics, headache-related disability, psychiatric, chronic pain and medical comorbidities.
According to a study of physicians’ attitudes about pain drugs published in The Journal of Pain, negative physician attitudes about opioid medications are closely associated with lower rates of prescribing and more favorable attitudes are linked with higher prescribing levels.
For treating the estimated 100 million Americans with chronic pain -- a population larger than those with heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined -- researched reported in The Journal of Pain shows that primary care physicians overwhelmingly prefer to prescribe non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDS), in accordance with published clinical practice guidelines.
A single dose of the antibiotic ceftriaxone given for antimicrobial prophylaxis prior to surgery enhanced patient pain thresholds after the procedure, according to a study published in The Journal of Pain, the peer review publication of the American Pain Society, www.americanpainsociety.org.
Testosterone therapy is associated with decreased pain perception in men with low testosterone levels related to opioid (narcotic) pain relievers (analgesics), a new study finds. The results were presented Monday at The Endocrine Society’s 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Adolescents can have chronic pain, just like adults. As patients, their parents and physicians search for solutions, there is one increasingly available option they should avoid, Mayo Clinic researchers say: medical marijuana.
Reducing levels of nerve-growth factor may be a key to developing better pain treatments.
Expert physicians and neuroscientists look to the future of "digital drugs," implantable devices for the treatment of pain. Exciting new options include focus on dorsal root ganglion; new frequencies of neurostimulation; and new devices for peripheral nerve stimulation.
The first set of recommendations about patient selection and appropriateness for implantation of “digital drugs” to manage chronic pain are devised to deliver better care and reduce complications using neuromodulation therapies, an expanding and evolving treatment that interfaces with nerves.
At the start of the 11th World Congress of the International Neuromodulation Society, Technology Transforming Chronic Illness Management, an international panel of experts, The Neuromodulation Appropriateness Consensus Committee, announced it is issuing guidance on using neurostimulation to manage chronic pain.
The Neuromodulation Appropriateness Consensus Committee, an international group of more than 60 leading pain specialists, has created the first consensus guidelines for the use of neurostimulation, an established and growing therapy for chronic pain and other conditions.
Patients with cancer that has spread to their bones are often treated with radiation therapy to reduce pain. But if that treatment doesn’t work, or can’t be used again, a second, effective option now exists. Results of a clinical trial on the new therapy, presented by a researcher at Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center, is being presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
With more than 3,000 clinical trials to date, is acupuncture is a proven-effective treatment with a low complication rate? Or is it just a "theatrical placebo" with little or no effect on pain or other outcomes? Opposing viewpoints are presented in a pair of "Pro and Con" editorials in the June issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).
For patients with uncontrolled pain from terminal cancer, a new approach to calculating initial dosage may allow a quicker start of spinal analgesia—and less time in the hospital, according to a study in the June issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center neuroscientist Dwayne Godwin, Ph.D., explains how brain freeze works.
A new "telerehabilitation" approach lets physical therapists assess patients with low back pain (LBP) over the Internet, with good accuracy compared with face-to-face examinations, reports a study in the May 15 issue of Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques aimed at mental and neurological conditions include transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for depression, and transcranial direct current (electrical) stimulation (tDCS), shown to improve memory. Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) has also shown promise.
Better body armor and rapid aeromedical evacuations enable American service members to survive blasts that would have proved fatal in Vietnam or even the first Gulf War, but they pose new challenges to military medicine – how to deal with the excruciating pain of injuries, especially severe burns from IED blasts that body armor can’t protect.
Although several types of pain assessment tools are available to help clinicians evaluate pain in older people, too often the sole initial emphasis is to gauge pain intensity instead of determining how the pain affects function and the need for treatment, according to research presented at the American Pain Society Annual Scientific Meeting, www.americanpainsociety.org.
Federal funding for pain research remains at disproportionately low levels despite overwhelming evidence that untreated and undertreated chronic pain is costing the nation more than $600 billion a year in medical costs and lost work time, and is expected to soar even higher as the population continues to age, according to the American Pain Society, www.americanpainsociety.org. Pain research accounts for only about 1 percent of research grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a massive, unjustifiable disparity given the imbalanced proportion of U.S. health care expenditures attributed to pain.
Patients coping with chronic pain should also be evaluated for anxiety disorders, according to new research published in General Hospital Psychiatry.
A new study led by UNC School of Medicine researchers is the first to identify a genetic risk factor for persistent pain after traumatic events such as motor vehicle collision and sexual assault. The study also contributes further evidence that persistent pain after stressful events has a specific biological basis.
For many people who have fibromyalgia, even the thought of exercising is painful. Yet a new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center shows that exercise does not worsen the pain associated with the disorder and may even lessen it over time. The findings are published in the current online issue of the journal Arthritis Care & Research.
A gene mutation associated with a rare sleep disorder surprisingly also contributes to debilitating migraines, a new discovery that could change the treatment of migraines by allowing development of drugs specifically designed to treat the chronic headaches.
A research team led by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Francisco has identified a genetic mutation that is strongly associated with a typical form of migraine.
Most of us probably know at least one woman, and maybe quite a few more, with endometriosis. Despite the disease’s prevalence, there is no consensus on the cause of it, the existing treatment options leave a lot to be desired, and there are too few ways for women to, at the very least, effectively numb the pain that the disease provokes. A team of researchers hunting biomarkers to be used in diagnostics and perhaps a personalized approach to treating endometriosis will present its findings Tuesday at the Experimental Biology 2013 conference in Boston.
Research presented Friday aims to find an effective treatment for the two million Americans suffering annually from moderate-to-severe heel pain. John J. Wilson, MD, MS, AMSSM member, presented his research on plantar fasciitis entitled, “Platelet-Rich Plasma for the Treatment of Chronic Plantar Fasciopathy in Adults: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial” on Friday, April 19, 2013 at the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine’s 22nd Annual Meeting in San Diego, Cal.
Wielding a joystick and wearing special glasses, pain researcher Alexandre DaSilva rotates and slices apart a large, colorful, 3-D brain floating in space before him.
For the millions of Americans who rely on pain medications for neuralgia, a condition where nerves damaged by surgery, traumatic injury, or diseases such as diabetes cause chronic pain, an emerging non-pharmacological treatment may offer relief. By placing a tiny ball of ice on damaged nerves by way of a minimally invasive interventional radiology treatment called cryoneurolysis, William Moore, MD, a thoracic interventional radiologist at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, is able to safely short circuit chronic pain caused by nerve damage.
Success of clinical trials is dependent on recruitment and maintenance of adequate numbers of study subjects. For pain trials, often characterized by low recruitment rates and high attrition, arriving at a desired cohort of subjects presents a challenge for most investigators. Web based recruiting is an alternative - expanding the research site’s reach to more potential subjects and allowing for prescreening before the first research visit. We describe development of this recruitment tool in a vulvodynia trial.
Dexmedetomidine is a highly selective α2 adrenergic agonist that has been shown to decrease the intensity of opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH). We aimed to investigate the anti hyperalgesic effects of dexmedetomidine on high-dose remifentanil-induced hyperalgesia. Conclusions: High-dose remifentanil induced hyperalgesia but, dexmedetomidine efficiently alleviated those symptoms. Dexmedetomidine may be a novel and effective treatment option for OIH.
Few studies document short- and long-term pain and behavioral health in combat-injured service members with major limb trauma. In a 2-year longitudinal study, multiple post-injury pain and related outcomes are reported.
Autologous bio-cellular grafts are increasingly encountered in surgical literature as a means to enhance tissue repair. Biologic graft use has expanded beyond simple platelet rich plasma to encompass bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC) and adipose derived autologous stem cell products. The clinical application of such grafts in the treatment of low back pain is intriguing, but remains unproven.
To evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of percutaneous microwave ablation (MWA) under CT guidance in the management of refractory pain in bone and soft tissue tumors. Researchers Concluded: When other therapies provide insufficient pain relief, percutaneous MWA treatment appears to be a feasible and effective technique for the management of refractory pain in bone and soft-tissue tumors. Ablation time appears to be highly reduced compared to radiofrequency ablation.
Advanced Spinal Cord Stimulator Lead Anchoring And Multiple Lead Placement Technique Through An Individual Port: A Case Serie To introduce a novel and advanced lead anchoring technique as well as introduce the emerging technology of large single port introducers and percutaneous paddle leads.
divergent effects of prescribed opioids in various domains among SCD patients, which likely modulate subsequent opioid taking behavior,” the authors wrote. “In all types of effects, biological effects appeared to be mediators of more indirect effects which led to alterations in subsequent opioid taking behavior.
All materials presented at the AAPM's 29th Annual Meeting are embargoed for news or other publication until the date and time of the presentation of the meeting unless AAPM grants permission for early publication in advance. EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE APRIL 11, 2013 5:30 PM Central Time/6:30 PM Eastern Time
Introduction: We evaluated radiofrequency (RF) heat lesion size for all cannula tip sizes, set temperatures, and lesion times typically used in interventional pain management. Collected data informs selection of cannulae and RF generator settings for RF treatments. Methods: Over 400 lesions were created in ex vivo animal tissue using tip diameters 23, 22, 20, 18, 16 gauge; tip lengths 5, 10, 15mm; set temperatures 60, 70, 80, 90°C; lesion times 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 5, 10 minutes. Average lesion size was assessed using computer-aided photographic temperature mapping of 5-20 lesions per configuration, and modeled using finite-element analysis. Results: Increasing cannula diameter from 22g to 16g increased average lateral lesion width by 65-69% (3-4mm) at 80°C and 2 minutes. Increasing set temperature from 60°C to 90°C increased lesion width 100-150% at 2 minutes; for example, width increased from 4.2mm to 10.4mm for the average 16g/10mm tip cannula. While lesions grew most rapidly over the firs
One in five U.S. women are sexually assaulted in their lifetimes and more than half experience severe pain during the week following an attack. A study published in The Journal of Pain showed that presence of a genetic variant could significantly reduce pain severity associated with assault.
Those who accept their pain condition are best able to tolerate pain, while distraction can be the way to lower pain intensity, according to research reported in The Journal of Pain, the peer review publication of the American Pain Society (www.americanpain society.org).
A new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center found that it is nearly impossible for patients to determine the true cause of their migraine episodes without undergoing formal experiments.
Among patients with painful chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, use of the anti-depressant drug duloxetine for 5 weeks resulted in a greater reduction in pain compared with placebo, according to a study in the April 3 issue of JAMA.
An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, says a key protein in Schwann cells performs a critical, perhaps overarching, role in regulating the recovery of peripheral nerves after injury. The discovery has implications for improving the treatment of neuropathic pain, a complex and largely mysterious form of chronic pain that afflicts over 100 million Americans.
New doctors take an oath to first do no harm, but physicians often go too far in their quest to keep that oath – exposing patients to aggressive treatments that don’t improve outcomes and drive up healthcare costs.
University of Maryland finding in the Journal of Neuroscience may alter analgesic treatments.
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