European journal of pain : EJP
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Painful decisions: How classifying sensations can change the experience of pain.
Categorizing perceptual stimuli is a mechanism for facilitating the processing of sensory input from our environment. This facilitation of perception is achieved through generalization (assimilation) of stimulus characteristics within categories and accentuation between categories. These categorization processes have been demonstrated in visual, auditory, tactile and social perception, but never in pain perception. ⋯ Categorization effects in pain perception are demonstrated. Classifying and labelling painful events can modulate early perceptual processes, lead to under- or overestimation of pain symptoms and affect decision-making behaviour related to pain.
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Youth with chronic pain are at higher risk for obesity than the general population. In youth with chronic pain, obesity exacerbates pain-specific activity limitations, and in adults with chronic pain, obesity perpetuates a cycle of disability. The current study examined whether weight status predicts functional disability outcomes over time in youth with chronic pain. ⋯ This study shows that obesity impedes improvement in functioning for youth with chronic pain. On the basis of these findings, interventions should be tailored to the unique challenges of this population.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Conditioned pain modulation dampens the thermal grill illusion.
The thermal grill illusion (TGI) refers to the perception of burning heat and often pain that arises from simultaneous cutaneous application of innocuous warm and cool stimuli. This study utilized conditioned pain modulation (CPM) to help elucidate the TGI's underlying neural mechanisms, including the debated role of ascending nociceptive signals in generating the illusion. ⋯ Conditioned pain modulation reduces the perceived painfulness, unpleasantness and heat of the thermal grill illusion and noxious heat similarly. The results have important theoretical implications for both types of pain.
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Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) at M1/S1 cortex has been shown to alleviate neuropathic pain. ⋯ Neurobiological correlates of rTMS for the pain relief are unclear. rTMS on M1/S1 with 11 C-carfentanyl-PET activates endogenous opioids. Thermal and heat pain thresholds remain unchanged. rTMS induces top-down opioid-mediated inhibition but not change the sensory discrimination of painful stimuli.
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The purpose of the study is to evaluate the feasibility of a newly developed parent program for parents of children with non-specific chronic musculoskeletal pain. This program is part of the child's interdisciplinary outpatient pain rehabilitation treatment. The goal of the parent program is to change parent's thoughts/behaviour regarding pain with the ultimate intention to further improve their child's functioning. There were two main objectives in the study: First, to evaluate the feasibility of the parent program. Second, to evaluate changing in parental behavioral factors pre- and posttreatment. ⋯ A parent program, designed to change cognition and behaviour of parents of children with chronic musculoskeletal pain is feasible.