Articles: pain-management.
-
Stereotact Funct Neurosurg · Jan 1992
Clinical and technical results from spinal stimulation for chronic pain of diverse pathophysiologies.
Spinal stimulation has been indicated for pain of peripheral deafferentation, but not for low-back pain. Technical and clinical records of 241 consecutive spinal stimulator recipients were reviewed, including: peripheral deafferentation pain (n = 44); predominant pain of low back, postlaminectomy (n = 96), and predominant pain of leg(s), postlaminectomy (n = 48). ⋯ For the postlaminectomy syndromes, only the technical results correlated significantly with outcome. Spinal stimulation actually yielded results as good for the 'failed back surgery syndrome' as for peripheral deafferentation pain, because newer technical methods were proven to stimulate the low back predictably.
-
The treatment of chronic pain is costly and frustrating for the patient, health care provider, and health care system. This is due, in part, to the complexity of pain symptoms which are influenced by behavior patterns, socioeconomic factors, belief systems, and family dynamics as well as by physiological and mechanical components. Assessment of treatment outcomes is often limited to the patient's subjective, multidimensional, self-reports. ⋯ In this study, a 36% reduction in clinic visits in the first year postintervention was found among the 109 patients who participated in an outpatient behavioral medicine program. Decreased clinic use continued in the first 50 patients followed 2 years postintervention. Decreased use projected to an estimated net savings of $12,000 for the first year of the study posttreatment and $23,000 for the second year.
-
Rev Esp Anestesiol Reanim · Nov 1991
[Hemodynamic repercussion of epidural bupivacaine in thoracic injuries].
Systemic and pulmonary hemodynamic effects of 8 to 10 ml of 0.25% bupivacaine containing 1:200,000 adrenaline administered at the midthoracic level were prospectively assessed in 20 patients (aged 45 +/- 16 years) with thoracic trauma presenting 6 +/- 2 rib fractures and pulmonary contusion of different extent and radiologic density. The study was carried out at comparable evolving times, 24 h after trauma, during the second or third day of treatment, and when the hemodynamic stability of the patient was achieved. ⋯ The results indicate that administration of moderate doses of epidural bupivacaine at the middle thoracic level in patients with normovolemic thoracic traumatism were not followed by alterations in the hemodynamic function except for a slight decrease in systemic arterial and pulmonary pressure. The mean arterial pressure decreased by 8% (p less than 0.05), the cardiac index showed a 4% reduction (p = 0.05), and the mean pulmonary pressure experienced a 14% decrease (p less than 0.05).