Beth Gilbert

Understanding and addressing these disorders can improve the patient's mental health as well as their chronic pain and other comorbid conditions. Incorporating cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy into the management of chronic pain has been shown to improve pain outcomes.

Successful CRPS management should be viewed as a continuum that requires a flexible treatment approach that incorporates pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic components.

Pain is a common side effect of cancer that can be caused by the disease itself, treatment, and other factors. Greater awareness of the causes and types of cancer pain, knowledge of available treatments, and willingness to consult pain specialists are the keys to providing effective cancer pain management.

Pain has been associated with a number of conditions, including addiction, depression, and anxiety. Greater awareness of concurrent comorbid conditions and the options available to treat them produces better outcomes in chronic pain patients.

Pain is a product of the brain and the experiences of pain can be shaped by mood, cognition, anxiety, fear, genetics, and other individual differences. Currently, pain is measured subjectively but an objective measure of pain may improve the diagnosis and management of patients with chronic pain.

New implantable technologies such as spinal cord stimulation and peripheral nerve stimulation have shown great potential to improve the management of patients with chronic pain.

Chronic pain is a difficult condition to diagnose and manage, especially since most diagnostic measures are subjective and treatment varies from patient to patient. A key to diagnosing and treating chronic pain is to have a strong understanding of the different diagnostic tools and treatment options available.

A poster session at the 2013 AAPM annual meeting highlighted research on the role of central sensitization in chronic pain, the use of microwave ablation to treat refractory pain in patients with soft tissue tumors, a possible treatment for opioid-induced hyperalgesia, and the psychosocial effects of opioid treatment in patients with sickle-cell anemia.

Trial design and other factors can conspire to produce false positive or false negative results, which complicates not only the search for more effective pain treatments but also the safe and effective use of pain medications in practice.

The authors of three award-winning posters shared results and insights at the 2013 AAPM Annual Meeting.

There are several tools and resources available to pain practitioners who want to use their patient data to conduct a clinical trial.

Cancer pain management has improved over the last decade with advances in oral and intravenous medication; however, several challenges still exist in administration.

The clinical features of microscopic colitis may overlap with those of ulcerative colitis and other bowel conditions.

Issues of health literacy and numeracy come into play when identifying the best strategies for explaining the risk associated with treatments for IBD.

Several predictors may help clinicians determine which patients with IBD are at risk for more severe disease and potential complications.

Although treatment for IBD is expensive, adherence reduces hospitalizations, complications, and other factors that increase the cost of care.

When IBD patients experience loss of response to therapy, the decision to escalate the dose or switch to other drugs depends on a number of factors.

What is the proper balance between mucosal healing and symptom control in treating patients with IBD?

Symptoms, not mucosal healing, should be the endpoint used in clinical practice to assess outcomes of patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

Novel biologics in development may provide alternatives to current standards of care in treating patients with refractory inflammatory bowel disease.

Adverse complications associated with IBD treatment may be uncommon, but awareness of these potential side effects is essential for proper management.

Defining, measuring, and tracking the care gastroenterologists provide to patients with IBD will improve the quality and consistency of care.

Most at-risk IBD patients have not received recommended vaccinations, even though 80% of these patients have visited their doctor in the last year.

Lessons learned in the management of children with IBD may help gastroenterologists improve the diagnosis and management of adults with the condition.