Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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To identify, in community dwelling elders, the determinants of sustained pain improvement or worsening. ⋯ With a 1-month time lag between predictor variable assessment and follow-up pain measures, the study supports temporal associations between depressive symptoms and SRH and subsequent pain change. Clinicians providing care to community dwelling elders are advised to evaluate and attend to both the depressive symptoms and SRH of their patients.
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The block of the obturator nerve is used in pain medicine mostly for the management of acute pain after lower limb surgery or for chronic hip pain. The aim of this study was to define an injection technique based on an anatomical investigation and a magnetic resonance (MRI) analysis. ⋯ Based on the above findings, a technique of block of the obturator nerve could be defined. The method has the potential to enable an efficient and safe identification of the target nerve in clinical practice.
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Smoking may be a major problem in chronic low back pain (LBP) patients. The goal of this study was to determine whether smoking status affected multidisciplinary pain facility treatment outcome. ⋯ Current smoking status appears to be associated with poorer treatment outcome after multidisciplinary pain facility treatment. Return to work within smokers is predicted by pain and worker compensation status. Pain facilities should target current smokers with significant perceived pain for close treatment monitoring in an attempt to improve treatment outcome.
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Specialists in pain medicine commonly experience psychological assaults on their self-esteem, especially from patients who seem unreasonably demanding, overly critical, or threatening. This article will discuss how these challenges can trigger a professional's self-protective and defensive coping mechanisms that, in turn, can provoke decidedly unempathic responses. ⋯ The first set will focus on certain pragmatics of empathy skill development. The second will discuss the Eastern notion of "bare attention" as an ideal form of empathic engagement that can also counteract an unhealthy degree of defensiveness when self-esteem is threatened.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Reduction of topical anesthetic onset time using ultrasound: a randomized controlled trial prior to venipuncture in young children.
Ultrasound treatment prior to topical anesthetic application has been shown to speed anesthesia onset by enhancing anesthetic penetration into the skin. ⋯ Ultrasound treatment speeds time of onset of liposomal lidocaine cream anesthesia in young children undergoing venipuncture. Side effects were mild in our population.