European journal of pain : EJP
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Brief intervention, physical exercise and cognitive behavioural group therapy for patients with chronic low back pain (The CINS trial).
Cognitive-behavioural treatments (CBT) and physical group exercise (PE) have both shown promising effects in reducing disability and increasing work participation among chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients. A brief cognitive intervention (BI) has previously been demonstrated to reduce work disability in CLBP. The aim of this study was to test if the effect of BI could be further increased by adding either group CBT or group PE. ⋯ Our study demonstrates that treatments that previously were found to be effective and are included in most treatment guidelines, such as group cognitive-behavior therapy and exercise, were not effective in this given context compared to a brief, cognitive intervention. This implies that an optimized brief intervention is difficult to outperform in patients on sick leave due to low back pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Role of transcranial direct current stimulation on reduction of postsurgical opioid consumption and pain in total knee arthroplasty: Double randomized clinical trial.
Postoperative pain control is an important factor in determining recovery in total knee arthroplasty (TKA).The aim of the study was to assess the efficacy of 4 sessions of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over primary motor cortex (M1) in patients undergoing unilateral TKA. ⋯ The data of the present study suggest that four sessions of transcranial direct current brain stimulation over motor cortex could reduce morphine consumption and pain perception during the postoperative period in total knee arthroplasty.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Impact of etiology and duration of pain on pharmacological treatment effects in painful polyneuropathy.
The pharmacological treatments for painful polyneuropathy have not changed much for more than a decade, and less than half of the patients obtain adequate pain relief with first line treatments. Therefore, patient-specific factors which could predict drug response are searched for. ⋯ This study found that duration of pain appears to have an impact on the effect of antidepressants in neuropathic pain and that diabetes as etiology for painful polyneuropathy appears to influence pain relief obtained with anticonvulsants.
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Placebo effects on pain are reliably observed in the literature. A core mechanism of these effects is response expectancies. Response expectancies can be formed by instructions, prior experiences and observation of others. Whether mental imagery of a response can also induce placebo-like expectancy effects on pain has not yet been studied systematically. ⋯ The reported studies extend research on placebo effects by demonstrating that mental imagery of reduced pain can induce placebo-like expectancy effects on pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Analgesic effect of clobazam in chronic low-back pain but not in experimentally induced pain.
Chronic pain is frequently associated with hypersensitivity of the nervous system, and drugs that increase central inhibition are therefore a potentially effective treatment. Benzodiazepines are potent modulators of GABAergic neurotransmission and are known to exert antihyperalgesic effects in rodents, but translation into patients are lacking. This study investigates the effect of the benzodiazepine clobazam in chronic low-back pain in humans. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of GABA modulation on chronic low-back pain and on quantitative sensory tests. ⋯ Modulation of GABAergic pain-inhibitory pathways may be a potential future therapeutic target.