Current pain and headache reports
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Curr Pain Headache Rep · Apr 2013
ReviewOccipital injections for trigemino-autonomic cephalalgias: evidence and uncertainties.
Cluster headache is a debilitating disorder. Oral prophylactic treatments may act with a significant delay, cause side effects, or fail to control the attacks. Injections targeting the occipital nerve have raised interest for the management of CH. ⋯ Occipital injections provide a rapid benefit on the frequency of attacks and can be used as an adjunct to an oral prophylactic for a quicker improvement. Whether or not this approach can be used without any oral prophylaxis is still to be determined. The technique is easy to master, has a low cost, and should be learned by physicians involved in CH management.
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Animal-assisted therapy is a complementary medicine intervention, typically utilizing dogs trained to be obedient, calm, and comforting. Several studies have reported significant pain relief after participating in therapy dog visits. ⋯ Mirror neuron activity and disease-perception through olfactory ability in dogs may also play important roles in helping dogs connect with humans during therapeutic encounters. This review will explore a variety of possible theories that may explain the therapeutic benefits that occur during therapy dog visits.
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Neurostimulation techniques for the treatment of primary headache syndromes, particularly for chronic cluster headache (CCH), have received much interest in the recent years. Occipital nerve stimulation (ONS) has yielded favourable clinical results, and is becoming a routine treatment for refractory chronic cluster headache in specialized centres. Meanwhile, other promising techniques, such as spinal cord stimulation (SCS) or sphenopalatine ganglion stimulation, are emerging. This article reviews the current state of clinical research for neurostimulation techniques for chronic cluster headache, and particularly the pros and cons of SCS and ONS.
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Curr Pain Headache Rep · Mar 2013
ReviewPsychological resilience, pain catastrophizing, and positive emotions: perspectives on comprehensive modeling of individual pain adaptation.
Pain is a complex construct that contributes to profound physical and psychological dysfunction, particularly in individuals coping with chronic pain. The current paper builds upon previous research, describes a balanced conceptual model that integrates aspects of both psychological vulnerability and resilience to pain, and reviews protective and exacerbating psychosocial factors to the process of adaptation to chronic pain, including pain catastrophizing, pain acceptance, and positive psychological resources predictive of enhanced pain coping. The current paper identifies future directions for research that will further enrich the understanding of pain adaptation and espouses an approach that will enhance the ecological validity of psychological pain coping models, including introduction of advanced statistical and conceptual models that integrate behavioral, cognitive, information processing, motivational and affective theories of pain.
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Several empirical studies have shown that personal characteristics act as differential variables, which determine how pain is experienced and how the chronic pain patient adjusts to pain. The main aim of the present research is to review the relationships between some dispositional characteristics and pain adjustment. ⋯ The results suggest that it would be useful to include an assessment of normal personality structure during the multi-dimensional evaluation of a person with chronic pain. Understanding these individual personality characteristics will aid in designing pain intervention programs and help predict possible treatment outcomes.