Articles: pain-measurement.
-
The Nociception Coma Scale-Revised (NCS-R) was developed to help assess pain in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). Several studies have shown its sensitivity in assessing response to acute noxious stimuli. However, they failed to determine a reliable cut-off score that could be used to infer pain processing in these patients. ⋯ We observed a preserved metabolism in the left insula in patients with potential pain compared with FDG-PET confirmed UWS. PERSPECTIVES: Our data suggest that using the cut-off score of 5 could be helpful to improve pain management in patients with DOC. Future studies should focus on patients showing scores below this cut-off to better characterize their profile and improve care.
-
The present study assessed somatosensory changes related to trigeminal nerve damage using extensive evaluation tools and assessed the effect of such damage on the patients' psychosocial status and quality of life compared with healthy participants. ⋯ The results from the present study showed presence of varied somatosensory abnormalities when assessed using psychophysical and electrophysiological investigations and a significantly impaired psychosocial status.
-
Epidemiological studies suggest that women are not only at a higher risk for developing knee osteoarthritis (KOA), but also report greater symptom severity compared to men. One potential underlying mechanism of these sex differences may be exaggerated inflammatory responses to pain among women compared to men. The present study examined sex differences in interleukin-6 (IL-6) response over time following experimental pain testing. ⋯ Given that KOA is a chronic condition, and individuals with KOA frequently experience pain, these sex differences in IL-6 reactivity may contribute to the maintenance and/or exacerbation of KOA symptoms. PERSPECTIVES: The present study demonstrates that women, when compared to men, exhibit greater IL-6 reactivity after exposure to laboratory-evoked pain. Such sex differences may explain the mechanisms underlying women's higher chronic pain risk and pain perception, as well as provide further insight in developing personalized pain interventions.
-
Concerning the diagnosis and therapy of pain syndromes, standardized descriptions similar to those used in the examination of psychopathological findings via the system produced by the AMDP ("Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Methodik und Dokumentation in der Psychiatrie", i. e., the working group establishing standardized methodology and documentation within psychiatry) are still lacking. Therefore, the authors of this article have founded a working group to establish standardized methodology and documentation for symptoms and signs associated with pain, although not at a diagnosis-specific level, in order to promote standardization in the documentation of pain and rating of the symptoms associated with a given set of medical results. This article presents a system for documenting the symptoms and signs associated with pain globally and independently of the diagnosis (Structured Pain Assessment System) with nomenclature that is inspired by the AMDP system. The objective of this working group is to develop documentation for a uniform multidimensional pain assessment (with defined terminology) that serves as a comparable and unified standard in the field.
-
The Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) is recommended for evaluating pain behaviors in patients in the intensive care unit who are unable to report pain. The source of the only published Spanish version of the CPOT does not verify that it underwent a formal translation process. ⋯ The Spanish version is ready to undergo validation with patients in the intensive care unit, which is the next step toward its use in assessing pain behaviors among patients in intensive care units where Spanish is spoken.