Pain physician
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Results of 2-year follow-up of a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of fluoroscopic caudal epidural injections in central spinal stenosis.
Lumbar spinal stenosis is one of the most common causes of low back pain among older adults and can cause significant disability. Despite its prevalence, there is a paucity of literature concerning the treatment of spinal stenosis symptoms. Multiple interventions, including surgery and interventional techniques such as epidural injections and adhesiolysis, are commonly utilized in managing pain related to central spinal stenosis. However, there is a paucity of literature from randomized, controlled trials about the effectiveness of epidural injections for lumbar central spinal stenosis. ⋯ Caudal epidural injections of local anesthetic with or without steroids provide relief in a modest proportion of patients undergoing the treatment and may be considered as an effective treatment for a select group of patients who have chronic function-limiting low back and lower extremity pain secondary to central spinal stenosis.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Central adaptation of pain perception in response to rehabilitation of musculoskeletal pain: randomized controlled trial.
Understanding the mechanisms of long-standing musculoskeletal pain and adaptations in response to physical rehabilitation is important for developing optimal treatment strategies. The influence of central adaptations of pain perception in response to rehabilitation of musculoskeletal pain remains unclear. ⋯ Examiner-blinded, parallel-group randomized controlled trial with allocation concealment.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Unreliability of the visual analog scale in experimental pain assessment: a sensitivity and evoked potentials study.
Pain is a universal but subjective experience, making it difficult to obtain objective information about the experiential dimensions of pain. Although the visual analog scale (VAS) is ubiquitously used in pain assessment, its reliability has been questioned. The properties of this rating scale, especially its anchor points likely to be reinterpreted by subjects, may bias the results. ⋯ Taken together, our psychophysical and SEP results suggest that healthy individuals reinterpret the "no pain" anchor on the classical pain-VAS commonly used in the experimental assessment of pain, by rating the intensity of the stimulation rather than pain perception.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effect of fluoroscopically guided caudal epidural steroid or local anesthetic injections in the treatment of lumbar disc herniation and radiculitis: a randomized, controlled, double blind trial with a two-year follow-up.
Lumbar disc herniation and radiculitis are common elements of low back and lower extremity pain. Among minimally invasive treatments, epidural injections are one of the most commonly performed interventions. However, the literature is mixed about their effectiveness in managing low back and lower extremity pain. In general, individual studies and systematic reviews of epidural steroid injections have been hampered by their study design, baseline differences between treatment groups, inadequate sample sizes, highly controlled settings, lack of validated outcome measures, and the inability to confirm the injectate location because fluoroscopy was not used. ⋯ Caudal epidural injections of local anesthetic with or without steroids might be an effective therapy for patients with disc herniation or radiculitis. The present evidence illustrates the potential superiority of steroids compared with local anesthetic at two year follow up based on average relief per procedure.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Efficacy of intrathecally administered dexmedetomidine versus dexmedetomidine with fentanyl in patients undergoing major abdominal cancer surgery.
Most of the clinical experience gained in the use of intrathecal alpha-2- adrenoceptor agonists has been described with clonidine. Human studies using a combination of intrathecal dexmedetomidine and local anesthetics are lacking. ⋯ Dexmedetomidine 5 μg given intrathecally improves the quality and the duration of postoperative analgesia and also provides an analgesic sparing effect in patients undergoing major abdominal cancer surgery. Furthermore, the addition of intrathecal fentanyl 25 μg has no valuable clinical effect.