PAIN�
Improved methods for pain measurement have both theoretical and clinical importance. This study evaluated the Descriptor Differential Scale (DDS) of Pain Intensity, a recent methodology designed for assessing pain reports in clinical samples. Experiment 1 evaluated the sensitivity of the measure to small changes in electrocutaneous stimulation relative to a traditional visual analogue scale (VAS)...
The relationship of Workers' Compensation and litigation to low back pain (LBP) outcome is not established in the literature. Our study investigated the characteristics of disabled persons applying for Worker's Compensation or employing a lawyer, the factors predicting receipt of compensation, and the effects of compensation and litigation on employment outcome. One hundred sixty-nine unemployed...
Central post-stroke pain (CPSP) is a neuropathic pain syndrome characterized by constant or intermittent pain in a body part occurring after stroke and associated with sensory abnormalities in the painful body part. This study describes CPSP prospectively during the first year after stroke and characterizes the cerebrovascular lesions and neurological signs associated with the CPSP syndrome. Two...
This study sought to determine if depression and/or anxiety is uniquely related to pain after controlling for the strong association between anxiety and depression. Both depression and anxiety were assessed in an elderly institutionalized sample using: (1) research-based diagnoses based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-revised 3rd edition (DSM-IIIR) criteria, and (2) evaluations of one's recent...
As a way of delineating different levels of cancer pain severity, we explored the relationship between numerical ratings of pain severity and ratings of pain's interference with such functions as activity, mood, and sleep. Interference measures were used as critical variables to grade pain severity. We explored the possibility that pain severity could be classified into groupings roughly comparable...
We recently reported that intrathecal (i.t.) administration of prostaglandin (PG) E 2 or PGF 2 α in conscious mice induced allodynia through a pathway that includes the glutamate receptor system. Allodynia induced by PGE 2 and PGF 2 α was blocked by antagonists for NMDA and metabotropic glutamate receptor subtypes, respectively. In the present study, we examined...
Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is efficacious for pain due to injury of peripheral nerves, and therefore models of mononeuropathy appear to be particularly suitable for an experimental approach to the study of mechanisms underlying the clinical effect of this mode of treatment in chronic neuropathic pain. Virtually all previous experimental studies on SCS have utilized acute and nociceptive types...
The present study was conducted to determine whether long-lasting desensitization of bladder afferents could be achieved using a single local application of the capsaicin (CAP)-like irritant resiniferatoxin (RTX), and to compare the effects of RTX and CAP on behavioral and histological endpoints. While rats were anesthetized, vehicle (VEH), RTX (10-100 nmol) or CAP (10-100 μmol) was instilled in...
This study evaluated the pre-emptive analgesic effect of intravenous (i.v.) ketorolac (KET) for total hip replacement (THR). Sixty patients who underwent surgery for THR under general anesthesia were randomly allocated to 3 groups. Two i.v. injections were administered: one before induction and one after surgery. The patients were studied prospectively in a double-blind manner. The control group...
This paper is divided into 3 sections. The first provides the conceptual framework by introducing definitions of anger and related constructs and highlighting pertinent aspects of the concept of pain. The second section examines the evidence for anger as a feature of chronic pain. The available research indicates that chronic pain patients experience anger but this may be underestimated because...
The responses of 25 spinothalamic tract (STT) neurons to mechanical and thermal stimulation of the skin, as well as to a battery of iontophoretically applied excitatory amino acids (EAAs), were tested before and then during microdialysis of substance P (SP) or neurokinin A (NKA) into the dorsal horn of anesthetized monkeys. Neither peptide had significant effects on the background activity or the...
This study aimed at evaluating the influence of submaximal isometric contraction on pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) in 14 healthy volunteers before and after skin hypoesthesia. PPTs were determined with pressure algometry over m. quadriceps femoris before, during, and following an isometric contraction. Maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) was assessed using a computerized dynamometer. A contraction...
The factorial structure, reliability, and validity of the Pain Beliefs and Perceptions Inventory (PBPI) was investigated in a sample of 84 pain patients drawn from a pain clinic in the United Kingdom. The recovered factorial structure replicated that of a previous study. The 4 derived subscales, Mysteriousness, Self-Blame, Pain Constancy and Pain Permanence, had excellent reliability (internal consistency);...
A randomised controlled trial was used to test the hypothesis that cutaneous injections of sterile water (SWI) have no benefit over saline (PSI) as a method of pain reduction among patients with myofascial pain syndromes. Six general practitioners located at 6 different clinics of general practice treated 117 patients (91 female, 26 male, aged ≥ 25 years) with myofascial pain syndrome for at least...
In order to investigate gender differences in pain perception, the present study employed both a psychophysical and a psychophysiological measure. In experiment 1, 20 subjects rated the painfulness of 4 different levels of tonic pressure applied to their fingers using a verbally anchored categorization procedure. In general agreement with studies of pain threshold and tolerance, female subjects...
The relationships between depression, measured as high rates of depressive symptoms (Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, ZSDS), and musculoskeletal pains (Kuorinka et al. 1987) were described in a 55-year-old Finnish population consisting of all the 1008 persons born in 1935 and living in the city of Oulu on 1 October 1990. Three hundred forty-five men (76%) and 435 women (79%) participated in the...
Primary C-fiber afferents can induce a state of increased excitability in spinal cord neurons amplifying their responsiveness to noxious and innocuous stimuli - the phenomenon of central sensitization. We have examined whether the hypersensitivity to low-intensity stimuli (mechanical allodynia) evoked by C-afferent conditioning inputs is NMDA receptor dependent. The enhancement by C-afferent conditioning...
The ability of very low birth weight (VLBW) premature infants to respond differentially to real versus a sham heelstick conditions was examined in this crossover study. Using a multidimensional assessment of responses of premature infants (n = 48) between 26 and 31 weeks gestational age (GA) at the time of the study, it was found that they respond differentially to real versus sham heelstick both...