British journal of anaesthesia
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Multicenter Study
Conditioned pain modulation identifies altered sensitivity in extremely preterm young adult males and females.
Conditioned pain modulation is a potential biomarker for risk of persistent pain. As early-life experience can alter subsequent somatosensory processing and pain response, we evaluated conditioned pain modulation after extremely preterm birth. ⋯ Cold conditioning evoked inhibitory modulation in the majority of young adults and identified a subgroup of extremely preterm females with increased baseline sensitivity. Early-life experience and sex/gender should be considered when evaluating persistent pain risk with conditioned pain modulation.
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Maintaining situation awareness of monitored patients can be challenging because care providers must continually read and integrate multiple waveforms and numerical vital sign values into a mental model of the patient's situation. We developed and evaluated a technology designed to improve perception of vital sign information by presenting patient status as an animated patient avatar. ⋯ This study provides empirical evidence that an animated avatar offers the opportunity to transmit vital sign information significantly more quickly than conventional monitoring and with improved confidence and reduced cognitive effort. This could help care providers gain situation awareness more efficiently.