Pain
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Effect of Iyengar yoga therapy for chronic low back pain.
Low back pain is a significant public health problem and one of the most commonly reported reasons for the use of Complementary Alternative Medicine. A randomized control trial was conducted in subjects with non-specific chronic low back pain comparing Iyengar yoga therapy to an educational control group. Both programs were 16 weeks long. ⋯ Multivariate analyses of outcomes in the categories of medical, functional, psychological and behavioral factors indicated that significant differences between groups existed in functional and medical outcomes but not for the psychological or behavioral outcomes. Univariate analyses of medical and functional outcomes revealed significant reductions in pain intensity (64%), functional disability (77%) and pain medication usage (88%) in the yoga group at the post and 3-month follow-up assessments. These preliminary data indicate that the majority of self-referred persons with mild chronic low back pain will comply to and report improvement on medical and functional pain-related outcomes from Iyengar yoga therapy.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Patients initially diagnosed as 'warm' or 'cold' CRPS 1 show differences in central sensory processing some eight years after diagnosis: a quantitative sensory testing study.
We used quantitative sensory testing (QST) to gain further insight into mechanisms underlying pain in CRPS 1. Specific goals were: (1) to identify altered patterns of sensory processing some 8 years after diagnosis, (2) to document differences in sensory processing between 'warm' and 'cold' diagnostic subgroups, (3) to determine relationships between changed sensory processing and disease progression regarding pain. The study was performed on a cohort of patients (n=47) clinically diagnosed with CRPS 1 of one upper extremity approximately 8 years previously. ⋯ The latter is not the case for warm CRPS 1 patients. Both diagnostic subgroups show greater pressure hyperalgesia on the affected limb and with disease progression. QST may prove useful in the subdiagnosis of CRPS 1 and in quantifying its progression, with both applications warranting further investigation for clinical and research use.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Prognostic factors for poor recovery in acute whiplash patients.
The objective of our prospective inception cohort study was to identify prognostic factors for poor recovery in patients with whiplash-associated disorders grade 1 or 2 who still had neck pain and accompanying complaints 2 weeks after the accident. The study was carried out in a primary health care setting in The Netherlands and included 125 patients. The primary outcome measure was functional recovery defined in terms of neck pain intensity or work disability without medication use. ⋯ The accuracy of the predictions of the prognostic models was high, meaning that the models adequately distinguished patients with poor recovery from those regarded as recovered. These findings add to the growing body of evidence, indicating that socio-demographic, physical and psychological factors affect short- and long-term outcome after whiplash injury. Our findings also indicate that care providers can easily identify patients at risk for poor recovery with a visual analogue scale for initial pain intensity and work-related activities.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Auricular acupuncture for pain relief after total hip arthroplasty - a randomized controlled study.
Auricular acupuncture (AA) is known to be effective in treatment of various pain conditions, but still there have been no randomized controlled studies of AA for treatment of acute postoperative pain. Therefore we tested whether AA of specific points is superior to sham acupuncture for complementary analgesia after total hip arthroplasty in a patient-anesthesiologist-evaluator-analyst blinded study. The patients were randomly allocated to receive true AA (lung, shenmen, thalamus and hip points) or sham procedure (4 non-acupuncture points on the auricular helix). ⋯ Pain intensity on VAS-100 and incidence of analgesia-related side effects were similar in both groups. The differences between the groups as regard patients' opinions concerning success of blinding were not significant. Findings from our study demonstrate that AA could be used to reduce postoperative analgesic requirement.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Is successful rehabilitation of complex regional pain syndrome due to sustained attention to the affected limb? A randomised clinical trial.
In complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS1) initiated by wrist fracture, a motor imagery program (MIP), consisting of hand laterality recognition followed by imagined movements and then mirror movements, reduces pain and disability, but the mechanism of effect is unclear. Possibilities include sustained attention to the affected limb, in which case the order of MIP components would not alter the effect, and sequential activation of cortical motor networks, in which case it would. Twenty subjects with chronic CRPS1 initiated by wrist fracture and who satisfied stringent inclusion criteria, were randomly allocated to one of three groups: hand laterality recognition, imagined movements, mirror movements (RecImMir, MIP); imagined movements, recognition, imagined movements (ImRecIm); recognition, mirror movements, recognition (RecMirRec). ⋯ Imagined movements imparted a further reduction in pain and disability, but only if they followed hand laterality recognition. Mirror movements also imparted a reduction in pain and disability, but only when they followed imagined movements. The effect of the MIP seems to be dependent on the order of components, which suggests that it is not due to sustained attention to the affected limb, but is consistent with sequential activation of cortical motor networks.