Twenty six patients who had received spinal cord stimulation for chronic pain were evaluated by videotaped structured interviews with staff not directly involved in the patients' care. In addition estimates of pain relief were obtained from clinicians involved in the patients' care and from close relatives and friends. Information about lifestyles and drug usage was also collected and correlate...

The treatment of pain in acute myocardial infarction varies with local practice. Narcotic analgesics are still the usual treatment in many hospitals. Knowledge of optimal doses, duration of pain relief, and time between drug administration and pain relief is inadequate. Many studies indicate that the relief of pain is often incomplete after' treatment with narcotic analgesics. There is often a ...

BACKGROUND Studies of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of genicular nerves have reportedly significantly decreased pain up to 3 months post ablation, but no longer term effects have been reported. We performed an analysis of long-term pain relief of 31 RFA procedures of the genicular nerves to analyze the degree of pain relief past 3 months, culminating at 6 months. STUDY DESIGN Chart review and...

The hypothalamic neuropeptide oxytocin attracts the attention of both the neuroscientific community and the general public, especially because of its prosocial effects. In the brain, this neuropeptide is synthesized in neurons exclusively located within the hypothalamic nuclei. Magnocellular neurons compose the larger population of oxytocinergic neurons, project to the posterior pituitary lobe ...

Pain has both physical and emotional components. Physical noxious stimuli activate peripheral sensory neurons that, in turn, relay signals to the spinal and supraspinal nuclei. Subsequently, these signals activate areas within the brain associated with pain. Despite considerable knowledge in this area, analgesics may provide pain complete relief in only one out of five patients. Failure to mana...

P is generally the symptom that brings a person to a healthcare pract i t ioner looking for re l ie f . As informed by the American Pain Society, 45% of the American population seeks medical attention for chronic pain.1 Because complaints of pain are so varied, non-specif ic or diverse, 2 what may be tolerable at one instance suddenly becomes unbearable to the same person in another circumstanc...

BACKGROUND Patient expectations can be difficult to conceptualise and are liable to change with time, health and environmental factors. Patient expectation is known to influence satisfaction, however little is known about the expectations of patients attending for podiatric surgery. This paper will explore the expectations of a large cohort of patients undergoing elective foot surgery. METHOD...

Jason Nickerson and Amir Attaran examine the vast inequities in medical pain relief around the world and argue that the global control of licit narcotics be shifted from the International Narcotic Control Board to WHO.

BACKGROUND Characterizing relationships between pain relief and function can inform patient management decisions. This analysis explored graphically the relationship between pain relief and functional improvement in patients with neuropathic pain associated with spinal cord injury in two clinical trials of pregabalin. METHODS This was a post hoc analysis of two randomized, double-blind, clini...