Articles: chronic.
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Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience. Both pain and emotions are warning signals against outside harm. Interoception, bodily sensations of emotions can be assessed with the emBODY tool where participants colour the body parts where they feel different emotions. ⋯ Patients and controls marked different body areas as sensitive to nociceptive and tactile stimulation, but there was no difference in sensitivity to hedonic touch. Our findings suggest that emotional processing changes when pain persists, and this can be assessed with these colouring tasks. BMoEs may offer a new approach to assessing pain.
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Endometriosis is a chronic gynaecological condition, of which pain is both the most common and most debilitating symptom. As with other forms of pain, there is increasing recognition of the role of psychological processes in bridging the gap between pain and pain impact, and yet these processes are not well understood in endometriosis. The aim of this study was to investigate the relevance of fear of progression, imagery, and interpretation bias in endometriosis, and their contribution to pain interference. ⋯ Controlling for age and pain intensity, we found that imagery, interpretation bias, and their interaction were associated with increased fear of progression and that fear of progression was associated with greater pain-related interference. In exploratory analysis, we also found that the frequency and distress of endometriosis-related intrusive imagery were associated with greater fear of progression and pain interference, after controlling for age and pain intensity. These findings provide the first support of the importance of fear of progression in people with endometriosis and suggest possible pathways for causal investigation.
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Older adults have a high prevalence of chronic pain, which can have a substantial effect on their health and quality of life. Patients' use of effective pain relief methods is a central part of the treatment and management of chronic pain. The utilization of pain relief methods and their perceived effectiveness are important knowledge for treating and managing chronic pain for clinicians and older adults. However, this has been poorly investigated. ⋯ Knowledge about the actual use of pain treatment methods and the varied perceived effectiveness can guide clinicians in recommending new approaches or alternatives to manage chronic pain in older adults. How used methods are aligned with current clinical recommendations could be further explored in the future.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Randomized Trial Examining Efficacy of Mentha piperita in Reducing Chronic Headache Discomfort in Youth.
Youth with chronic headache experience disruption to routine activities and require significant health care utilization. While interventions targeting a relaxation response have shown clinically significant benefit in headache outcomes, peppermint oil has not been evaluated for efficacy in a pediatric headache population. ⋯ A brief intervention intended to activate the relaxation response produced a subjective reduction in pain and anxiety. However, the addition of peppermint oil to a foot bath did not significantly improve pain or anxiety beyond the control condition.