Excessive pain during medical procedures, such as burn wound dressing changes, is a widespread medical problem and is especially challenging for children. This article describes the rationale behind virtual reality (VR) pain distraction, a new non-pharmacologic adjunctive analgesia, and gives a brief summary of empirical studies exploring whether VR reduces clinical procedural pain. Results ind...

BACKGROUND Patients with pain caused by cancer frequently experience visceral pain. In addition to oral pharmacologic therapy to manage pain, neurolytic blocks of the sympathetic axis are also effective in controlling visceral cancer pain. METHODS Four types of neurolytic blocks (interpleural phenol, celiac plexus, superior hypogastric plexus, and ganglion impar) used in the treatment of visc...

The pharmacologic management of chronic orofacial pain involves the use of medications not used routinely in dental practice. Additionally, many drugs are used for long periods of time necessitating careful monitoring for adverse effects and potential drug interactions. This article will review commonly used medications for chronic orofacial pain and highlight important areas of concern.

The accurate assessment and effective treatment of acute pain in children in the hospital setting is a high priority. During the past 2 to 3 decades, pediatric pain management has gained tremendous knowledge with respect to the understanding of developmental neurobiology, developmental pharmacology the use of analgesics in children, the use of regional techniques in children, and of the psychol...

“Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage. Each individual learns the application of the word through experiences related to injury in early life”[1]. It is now clear that premature and full-term newborns have the neuroanatomical pathways from the periphery to cortex required for nociception. I...

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a common chronic musculoskeletal pain disorder of unknown etiology and characterized by generalized body pain, hyperalgesia, and other functional and emotional comorbidities. Despite extensive research, no treatment modality is effective for all FMS patients. In this paper, we briefly review the history of FMS and diagnostic criteria, and potential pathophysiologi...

PURPOSE To determine if an oral, tapered methylprednisolone regimen is superior to other commonly used pharmacologic interventions for the treatment of central post-stroke pain (CPSP). PATIENTS AND METHODS In this study, the charts of 146 stroke patients admitted to acute inpatient rehabilitation were retrospectively reviewed. Patients diagnosed with CPSP underwent further chart review to ass...