Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Group-based pain management programs (GPMPs) have been found to significantly improve quality of life and other pain outcome measures in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain. The aims of this meta-analysis were to reevaluate the overall effect of GPMPs on various pain outcomes for individuals experiencing chronic musculoskeletal conditions and to explore moderator variables that potentially contribute to the overall efficacy of GPMPs. ⋯ GPMPs have a statistically significant overall effect on all explored pain outcome measures. The investigation into content and structural moderators suggests that certain GPMP design factors have a greater effect on pain outcomes than do content factors. Therefore, GPMP structural designs appear to be important in reducing pain and improving quality of life for patients with chronic pain and warrant further investigation.
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To compare health care expenditures between older US adults (≥50 years) with pain who were prescribed opioid medications and those who were not. ⋯ This study raises awareness of the economic impact associated with opioid use among US older adults with pain. Future research should investigate these variables in greater depth, over longer time periods, and in additional populations.
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Recent guidelines advise limiting opioid prescriptions for acute pain to a three-day supply; however, scant literature quantifies opioid use patterns after an emergency department (ED) visit. We sought to describe opioid consumption patterns after an ED visit for acute pain. ⋯ In this sample, pill consumption varied by illness category; however, overall, patients were consuming low quantities of pills, and the majority had unused pills 10 days after their ED visit.
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This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of different interventions at reducing pain-related fear in people with fibromyalgia and to analyze whether the included trials reported their interventions in full detail. ⋯ This systematic review shows that there are promising interventions, such as exercise, multicomponent, and psychological therapies, that may decrease one specific type of fear in people with fibromyalgia, i.e., kinesiophobia. However, because of the low-very low certainty of the evidence found, a call for action is needed to improve the quality of randomized clinical trials, which will lead to more definitive information about the clinical efficacy of interventions in this field.
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Thoracic spinal pain is common, and patients with this type of pain have limited therapeutic options. The cohort in this study received diagnostic intra-articular zygapophysial joint injections leading to thermal neurotomy to the medial branch nerves to demonstrate improved pain as well as physical and psychological function. ⋯ This cohort demonstrates that there is a pragmatic diagnostic and therapeutic option available for patients with thoracic zygapophysial joint pain that can achieve 50-100% of pain relief in 63% of patients with improved physical and psychological function.