The Clinical journal of pain
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To examine the acute effects of isometric exercise of different intensities on pain perception in individuals with chronic lateral epicondylalgia. ⋯ Individuals with lateral epicondylalgia demonstrated increased pain intensity after an acute bout of isometric exercise performed at an intensity above, but not below, their individual pain threshold. Further investigation is needed to determine whether measurement of an individual's exercise induced pain threshold may be important in reducing symptom flares associated with exercise.
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Although there is a large body of research on the relationship between pain catastrophizing and functioning among individuals with chronic pain, little is known about the potential differential impact of specific aspects of pain catastrophizing. The current study evaluates the relationship between the Rumination, Helplessness, and Magnification subscales of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale and pain-related outcomes. ⋯ Pain catastrophizing is a multifaceted construct, and different domains of catastrophizing are uniquely related to pain-related outcomes. This study represents the first to evaluate the functioning of these subscales in a large, diagnostically heterogeneous sample of chronic pain patients.
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Emotional responses to pain are known to play an important role in the development and maintenance of pain. To better understand the role that pain anxiety plays in chronic pain, as well as to evaluate treatments that might treat it effectively, reliable and valid measures of pain anxiety are needed. Thus, the aim of this study was to provide additional evidence regarding the psychometric properties of the Child Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale (CPASS) in a sample of adolescents. ⋯ The findings support the reliability and the validity of CPASS as a measure of pain-related anxiety in adolescents.
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People living with sickle cell disease (SCD) experience severe episodic and chronic pain and frequently report poor interpersonal treatment within health-care settings. In this particularly relevant context, we examined the relationship between perceived discrimination and both clinical and laboratory pain. ⋯ Perceived discrimination within health-care settings was associated with pain facilitation. These findings suggest that discrimination may be related to increased central sensitization among SCD patients, and more broadly that health-care social environments may interact with pain pathophysiology.
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To apply topographical mapping of the electromyography (EMG) amplitude recorded from the upper trapezius muscle to evaluate the distribution of activity and the location of peak activity during a shoulder elevation task in participants with and without myofascial pain and myofascial trigger points (MTrP) and compare this location with the site of the MTrP. ⋯ People with myofascial pain and MTrP displayed a caudal shift of the distribution of upper trapezius muscle activity compared with asymptomatic individuals during a submaximal shoulder elevation task. For the first time, we show that the location of peak muscle activity is not associated with the location of the MTrP.