The journal of pain : official journal of the American Pain Society
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The COVID-19 pandemic prompted unexpected changes in the healthcare system. This current longitudinal study had 2 aims: 1) describe the trajectory of pandemic-associated stressors and patient-reported health outcomes among patients receiving treatment at a tertiary pain clinic over 2 years (May 2020 to June 2022); and 2) identify vulnerable subgroups. We assessed changes in pandemic-associated stressors and patient-reported health outcome measures. ⋯ PERSPECTIVE: Over a 2-year timeframe, the pandemic did not adversely influence physical and mental health among treatment-seeking patients with chronic pain. Patients reported small but significant improvements across indices of physical and psychosocial health. Differential impacts emerged among groups based on ethnicity, age, disability status, gender, education level, and working status.
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We aimed to determine whether adipokines are associated with pain and polysymptomatic distress in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) over time in a large patient registry. The cohort study was conducted in a subset of Forward; a patient-based multi-disease, multipurpose rheumatic disease registry with patients enrolled from community-based rheumatology practices across the U. S. ⋯ Elevated FGF-21 levels may help identify those at risk of worsening pain trajectories over time, independent of BMI. PERSPECTIVE: This study characterizes the relationship between severe obesity and pain and polysymptomatic distress in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and demonstrates that the adipocytokine fibroblast growth factor-21 is independently associated with pain and predicts a worsening trajectory over time. Further mechanistic studies are needed.
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Linguistic stimuli are commonly used in research to investigate the processing of pain. To provide researchers with a dataset of pain-related and non-pain-related linguistic stimuli, this research investigated 1) the associative strength between pain-related words and the pain construct; 2) the pain-relatedness ratings of pain words; and 3) the variability in the relatedness of pain words within pain word classifications (eg, sensory pain words). In Study 1, 194 pain-related and matched non-pain-related words were retrieved by reviewing the pain-related attentional bias literature. ⋯ The resulting dataset is openly accessible and new published sets can be added to the Linguistic Materials for Pain (LMaP) Repository. PERSPECTIVE: This article presents the development and preliminary evaluation of a large pool of pain-related and non-pain-related words in adults with and without self-reported chronic pain. Findings are discussed and guidelines are offered to select the most suitable stimuli for future research.
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Globally, life expectancy is increasing, leading to more surgeries being performed in older patients. Postoperative pain is associated with complications after surgery. The aim of this study is to explore potential age-related risk factors for acute postoperative pain in older patients undergoing surgery. ⋯ PERSPECTIVE: This study explored risk factors for acute postoperative pain in older patients. No differences in postoperative pain were observed in patients with or without preexistent disability or frailty, however, patients with mild cognitive impairment experienced reduced pain. We suggest to simplify pain assessment in this group and take functional recovery into account.
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Effect of voluntary exercise on endogenous pain control systems and post-traumatic headache in mice.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can cause acute and chronic pain along with motor, cognitive, and emotional problems. Although the mechanisms are poorly understood, previous studies suggest disruptions in endogenous pain modulation may be involved. Voluntary exercise after a TBI has been shown to reduce some consequences of injury including cognitive impairment. ⋯ PERSPECTIVE: This article evaluates the effects of exercise on pain-related behaviors in a preclinical model of traumatic brain injury (TBI). The findings show that exercise reduces nociceptive sensitization, loss of diffuse noxious inhibitory control, memory deficits, and spinal nociception-related gene expression after TBI. Exercise may reduce or prevent pain after TBI.