Articles: chronic.
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Spatial summation of pain (SSP) is the increase of perceived intensity that occurs as the stimulated area increases. Spatial summation of pain is subadditive in that increasing the stimulus area produces a disproportionately small increase in the perceived intensity of pain. A possible explanation for subadditive summation may be that convergent excitatory information is modulated by lateral inhibition. ⋯ Thus, the stimulation of the skin region between the endpoints of the lines appears to produce inhibition. These findings indicate that lateral inhibition limits SSP and is an intrinsic component of nociceptive information processing. Disruption of such lateral inhibition may contribute substantially to the radiation of some types of chronic pain.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2017
Physician Variation in Time to Antimicrobial Treatment for Septic Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department.
Delayed initiation of appropriate antimicrobials is linked to higher sepsis mortality. We investigated interphysician variation in septic patients' door-to-antimicrobial time. ⋯ Among patients with severe sepsis or septic shock receiving antimicrobials in the emergency department, door-to-antimicrobial times varied five-fold among treating physicians. Given the association between antimicrobial delay and mortality, interventions to reduce physician variation in antimicrobial initiation are likely indicated.
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Available modalities for the longitudinal capture and analysis of pain intensity in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) limit our ability to study intraindividual and interindividual variation in pain and the factors influencing the transition from acute to chronic pain in patients with SCD. ⋯ The longitudinal collection of pain data with the inclusion of hospital data during periods of hospitalization is feasible and acceptable in patients with SCD over periods of 30 to 60 days. Long-term collection of pain diary data, while informative, is associated with higher rates of missing data. Novel metrics of pain have the potential to better describe intraindividual and interindividual variation in pain, inform studies of the transition from acute to chronic pain as well as contribute patient-reported end points of pain for interventional clinical trials of pain in SCD.