Pain physician
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Pain costs more than $600 billion annually and affects more than 100 million Americans, but is still a poorly understood problem and one for which there is very often limited effective treatment. Electronic health records (EHRs) are the only databases with a high volume of granular pain information that allows for documentation of detailed clinical notes on a patient's subjective experience. ⋯ Our customized NLP model demonstrated good and successful performance in extracting granular pain information from clinical notes in electronic health records.
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Optimal approaches for treating surgical spine pathology in very geriatric patients, such as those over the age of 80, remain unclear. ⋯ Endoscopic spine surgery offers octogenarians a safe and effective option for the treatment of lumbar degenerative spine disease and may represent a valuable treatment strategy in a growing patient population.
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Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a common treatment for neuropathic pain. There are 2 main categories of SCS leads: paddle leads and cylindrical leads. Paddle leads have reduced long-term complications and provide better coverage of target dermatomes when compared to cylindrical leads. However, insertion of a paddle lead requires invasive surgery that comes with significantly higher costs and more short-term complications, such as postoperative pain and infection. In contrast, cylindrical leads can be inserted minimally invasively using percutaneous techniques but provide less coverage of targeted dermatomes and have a higher tendency to migrate from intended neuronal targets. ⋯ The unique shape memory property of nitinol shows promise in allowing cylindrical spinal cord stimulation leads to expand into a more optimal geometry within the epidural space. By having a body temperature-dependent geometry change, nitinol-based cylindrical leads could reduce lead migration, increase dermatomal coverage, and increase electrode density while maintaining the advantages of minimally invasive insertion.
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Chronic pain is a leading cause of disease burden and disability globally. The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed a major paradigm shift in health care delivery with the universal adoption of telemedicine. Telehealth physical examination is particularly challenging and little guidance is available on this topic. ⋯ PTAP tests should not replace the standard accepted in-person or virtual physical examination in practice, but in the absence of a hands-on exam, the PTAP test is a clear and concise test that can easily be performed in conjunction with other techniques via telehealth, and in the context of assessing pain provides useful clinical information that can help guide medical decision making.