European journal of pain : EJP
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Menstrual cycle phase does not influence gender differences in experimental pain sensitivity.
Influence of menstrual cycle phase on experimental pain sensitivity in women and on gender differences in pain sensitivity was examined in 48 men and 49 women in response to cold pressor, heat, and ischemic pain. Each woman was tested at three points in their menstrual cycle in randomized order, the early follicular, late follicular, and luteal phases, while men were also tested three times, controlling for number of days between test sessions. ⋯ However, pain perception during each task was not influenced by the menstrual cycle in women, nor did the menstrual cycle influence the magnitude of the gender differences in pain sensitivity. These results indicate that although women are more sensitive to a variety of noxious stimuli than men, menstrual cycle phase does not appear to moderate those differences in healthy men and women.
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Comparative Study
Effectiveness of a multimodal inpatient treatment for pediatric chronic pain: a comparison between children and adolescents.
To evaluate short and long-term treatment outcome of children (7-10 years) in comparison to adolescents (11-18 years) with disabling chronic pain following multimodal inpatient pain treatment. ⋯ Children display similar pain-characteristics to adolescents when entering inpatient treatment. A multimodal inpatient program appears to stop the the long-term vicious cycle of disability and pain for both children and adolescents. The demonstrated gender differences raise issues for further research and the possibility of additional pain management strategies for girls.
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Mechanical hyperalgesia may develop following tissue inflammation or nerve injury. Basically, peripheral sensitization leads to primary hyperalgesia at the site of injury, whereas secondary hyperalgesia occurs in the surrounding tissue and results from central sensitization. The present study focuses on the cerebral processing of secondary mechanical hyperalgesia. ⋯ In contrast to PPC, we found a significant correlation between increases of magnetic field strengths within bilateral S2 with the increase of pain ratings during pin-prick hyperalgesia. We conclude that the S2 cortex may be involved for the processing of secondary mechanical hyperalgesia in the human brain. PPC activation may reflect higher attentional processing during mechanical hyperalgesia.
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Traditionally, pain is divided into two main groups: nociceptive pain due to an excess of nociception and neuropathic pain associated with an injury or dysfunction of the central or peripheral nervous system. The French neuropathic pain group has developed a specific questionnaire, the DN4, to help clinicians in the differential diagnosis of neuropathic and non-neuropathic pain. In order to allow this questionnaire to be used in international studies, it has been translated and linguistically validated into Dutch, German, Greek and Hungarian, using a well-established procedure. ⋯ The DN4 items were linguistically validated in each of the target languages, thus providing the means for standardising the diagnosis of neuropathic pain and pooling the data collected during clinical research in the different countries involved.
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Catastrophic thinking about pain has been identified as an important determinant of adjustment to pain, in both adults and children. No study has investigated the prospective and unique role of catastrophizing in explaining later pain and disability in children. The aim of the present study was to investigate the prospective roles of catastrophic thinking about pain, pain intensity, and trait anxiety and their putative relationship with pain and disability tested 6 months later. ⋯ The variability in disability and pain complaint could not be explained by trait anxiety. Instead anxious disposition might be best conceived of as a precursor of catastrophizing in children; i.e. children with higher levels of trait anxiety at baseline were more inclined to report higher levels of catastrophizing at follow-up. The findings are discussed in terms of potential mechanisms through which catastrophizing might exert its negative impact upon pain and disability outcomes in children.