Articles: pain-management.
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Pediatric emergency care · Aug 2014
Case ReportsIncidental mucocele of the appendix in a 15-year-old girl.
Mucocele of the appendix is an exceedingly uncommon pathology in the pediatric population that may present with abdominal pain or represent an incidental finding after routine abdominal imaging. Etiologies may be inflammatory or neoplastic, but all share the commonality of chronic appendiceal obstruction. Early diagnosis is critical for positive long-term outcomes because the operative management will differ from that of a dilated appendix secondary to acute appendicitis.
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Support Care Cancer · Aug 2014
"We all talk about it as though we're thinking about the same thing." Healthcare professionals' goals in the management of pain due to advanced cancer: a qualitative study.
Unfortunately, several barriers impede successful management of cancer pain including those relating to the assessment and measurement of pain. There is currently no consensus as to what constitutes good pain control or what healthcare professionals are aiming to achieve in the management of pain for patients with advanced cancer. This study aimed to explore healthcare professionals' views and experiences to elicit what they are aiming to achieve in managing pain for patients with advanced cancer. ⋯ Healthcare professionals described what they deemed important in the management of pain. The goals they mentioned almost exclusively related to function as opposed to pain scores, but patients' goals and expectations were often not elicited specifically.
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Chronic pain patients' pain-related social support preferences have received little clinical or research attention. However, recent research utilizing the Pain Response Preference Questionnaire (PRPQ) has indicated that such preferences are related to pain-related disability. This study investigated whether pain-related social support preferences: (1) were related to disability levels, (2) predicted changes in pain and disability following a group-based treatment program, and (3) changed from pretreatment to posttreatment. ⋯ Additional research aimed at identifying the processes underlying the association between pain-related support preferences and disability is warranted. Given the potentially important role that a desire for solicitous support may play in shaping the social context of pain, understanding the unexpected changes in Solicitude scale scores found in the present study may be particularly important for improving self-management treatments for chronic pain.
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Pediatric emergency care · Aug 2014
J-Splint Use for Temporizing Management of Pediatric Femur Fractures: A Review of 18 Cases.
Pediatric femoral fractures are common injuries encountered in the field and in emergency departments. Currently described temporizing management strategies include skeletal traction, skin traction, traction splinting, and posterior splinting, all of which are suboptimal in some instances. J-splinting femur fractures may be advantageous in temporizing management of pediatric femur fractures. The objective of this study was to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of J-splint use for temporizing management of pediatric femur fractures. ⋯ The J-splint is a reliable, simple, and rapidly applied splint that prevents many of the complications and downfalls of other described temporizing measures and helps to provide excellent pain management in the acute setting.