Articles: pain-measurement.
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Even though greater than 60% oncology patients experience pain sometime during the course of their illness, management of this pain still remains an enormous clinical problem. Based on this report, it would appear that pain assessment and management would be a key concern in the care of oncology patients. Yet, from previous research, it is clear that a lack of pain assessment documentation exists, which essentially means legally assessment has not been performed. ⋯ Effectiveness was measured by extracting pain assessment documentation from charts. No significant differences in documentation scores were noted across the three groups. Recommendations and nursing implications concerning continuing education strategies and pain assessment documentation are made.
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Important physiological parameters such as blood pressure, ECG and others are measured today on a continuous basis or at fixed intervals and are documented together with the date and the time. Individual results and subjective data are ascertained through questioning the patient, observation or patient's self-assessment and are documented with paper and pencil, without having any certainty of the exact time of ascertainment or that such is comprehensible. Battery-operated microcomputers have been developed in the form of electronic diaries (E. ⋯ The percentage change in the pain course, benefit risk considerations, prognoses with the aid of sequential analyses and plausibility criteria can be calculated from the data. The advantages of this new instrument are its simple handling and reliable functioning. Its disadvantage is that it lacks the possibility to allow free-style entries.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Psychophysiological recordings (electrodermal activity, heart rate, respiration rate and frontalis and back muscle tension) were taken in chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients and control subjects during baseline conditions and during the presentation of six acute pressure pain stimuli. No baseline differences in back muscle tension between CLBP patients and controls were found, but CLBP patients did have higher baseline electrodermal activity. During pain stimulation, CLBP patients showed larger skin conductance reactions than controls. ⋯ Contrary to expectation, no differences were found between CLBP patients and controls in physiological habituation after repeating the pain stimulus. Comparison of subjective pain ratings and psychophysiological variables showed that for control subjects arousal and subjective pain were related. For CLBP patients there was no such clear relationship.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
Analgesic effects of different pulse patterns of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation on cold-induced pain in normal subjects.
The analgesic efficacy of various pulse patterns of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) were assessed in 84 normal healthy subjects using the cold pressor pain technique. Burst, modulation, random and continuous TENS all significantly elevated ice pain threshold. ⋯ Increasing the size of electrodes reduced the effect of continuous TENS. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study Clinical Trial
[Real time collection of pain profile in treatment with ibuprofen].
In an open three-center pilot study, 17 patients suffering from chronic persistent pain syndrome, due to osteoarthritis of the hip and knee or spondylarthrosis, were treated orally with 1800-2400 mg Ibuprofen per day for 3 weeks. The chronic pain syndrome and joint status were assessed by the physician at the beginning, and after 7, 14 and 21 days. Self-assessments were made by the patients six times daily during the full study period by means of battery-driven electronic diaries (E. ⋯ The closely-meshed real-time recording of pain course and other subjective data, such as adverse events or medication, etc., enables the physician to calculate more exactly and reliably improvement rates, as well as to carry out prognostic trend analyses and individual benefit-risk-ratio estimates. By comparing different kinds of data, each entered at the same time, plausibility checks are possible. The procedure presented here is considered to be a new valuable tool for reviewing subjective data from clinical drug trials.