As the number of treatment options for multiple sclerosis continues to grow patients and their doctors are left to find the right choice for them in order to manage the disease as successfully as possible. This can be a long process that can have a long lasting impact on their overall health.
Read More
Strategy for Prescribing Opioids to Patients with Potential Addiction
May 19th 2015Opioid addiction is a serious problem that a subset of patients prescribed opioids for pain could face; however, the issue presents an even more slippery slope for those with chronic pain due to the long-term need for the drugs.
Read More
For Patients with Fibromyalgia, It May Not Be 'Just' a Headache
May 18th 2015A collaborative team from the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic recently examined the prevalence of migraines in patients with fibromyalgia. The study, presented at the 34th Annual American Pain Society Scientific Meeting in Palm Springs, CA, used patients from the Mayo Clinic Fibromyalgia Registry database.
Read More
Despite rampant opioid misuse, abuse, and diversion self-reported by chronic pain patients in a study presented at the American Pain Society 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting, primary care providers tended to downgrade the patients' risk for engaging in those drug-related aberrant behaviors, indicating a gap between physicians' objective risk assessment for opioid abuse and the actual extent of the problem.
Read More
Perceptions of Pain Education at Top-rated Medical Schools Conflict with Reality
May 3rd 2014Medical and nursing schools that reported extensively incorporating the topic of pain care into prelicensure curricula do not offer more robust pain management education programs than those indicating minimal or moderate pain course integration.
Read More
Analgesic Requirements for Pain Related to Acute Pancreatitis
May 2nd 2014Patients who are hospitalized for pain related to acute pancreatitis pose unique challenges for achieving adequate analgesia, which is particularly true for those admitted with preexisting chronic pain and prior opioid use.
Read More
Opioid-induced Constipation Is More Than a Tolerability Issue
May 2nd 2014Though constipation as a side effect of opioid therapy is generally considered a tolerability issue that can be treated with over-the-counter laxatives, opioid-induced constipation may still lead to serious gastrointestinal complications.
Read More
Restoring the Path to Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management
May 2nd 2014Although the concept of delivering chronic pain care through multidisciplinary clinics is less than half a century old, John Loeser, MD, believes the model has already surpassed its peak in the United States, mainly due to financial reasons.
Read More
Cancer-related Pain Experience Differs by Race, Ethnicity
May 1st 2014With the co-occurrence of chronic pain and cancer amassing from improved cancer survival rates, it is increasingly important for healthcare professionals to understand how the conditions interrelate and influence patients' quality of life.
Read More
Vitamin D Supplementation May Reduce Pain, Improve Sleep in Knee Osteoarthritis Patients
May 1st 2014Expanding upon previous investigations of the associations among low vitamin D levels, chronic pain, and poor sleep within the general and non-pain populations, a research poster presented at the American Pain Society 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting suggests correcting inadequate vitamin D levels in middle-aged to older patients with knee osteoarthritis may reduce their clinical pain and improve sleep quality.
Read More
Long-term Botox Treatment Sustains Prevention of Chronic Migraine Headaches
May 1st 2014Although the benefit of Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA) for preventing headaches in adults with chronic migraine has been extensively established in clinical trials, limited data exists on the injections' effectiveness for the indication beyond 5 treatment cycles.
Read More
Current Pain Assessment Tools for Geriatric Patients Missing from Practices
May 11th 2013Although several reliable and valid pain assessment tools for cognitively intact and impaired geriatric patients are currently available, clinical evidence emphasized by Keela Herr, PhD, RN, FAAN, AGSF, co-director of the John A. Hartford Center for Geriatric Nursing Excellence at the University of Iowa College of Nursing, suggests those scales are not consistently administered throughout practice settings.
Read More
Physician Awareness of Demographic Influences on Pain Treatment Decisions Can Impact Care Delivery
May 11th 2013While past studies suggest variability in physicians' chronic pain treatment decisions based on patients' sex and race, few have considered the degree of providers' self-insight into the influence of such demographics on their treatment decisions.
Read More
Data Support Long-Term Efficacy for Opioid Therapy for Chronic Non-Cancer Pain
May 10th 2013A literature review of randomized controlled trials and open-label studies of six months or longer duration finds good evidence that opioid therapy improves pain scores, with weaker evidence for its long-term effect on functional status.
Read More
Federal Funding in Pain Research Falls, But Project Pipeline Grows
May 10th 2013Though the total National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget has stayed flat over the past several years, chronic pain research has enjoyed an expanded slice of the federal funding pie, as dollars committed to that portion of science grew from $279 million in 2008 to $396 million in 2012.
Read More
Multidisciplinary Approach to Opioid Reduction Can Achieve Dosage Goals
May 10th 2013In light of issues concerning opioid misuse running parallel to the tenfold increase of prescription opioid use over the past 20 years, a team of researchers have developed an ongoing study examining results of a pilot program aimed at reducing patients' use of pain medications.
Read More
Jennifer Erensen on Opioid Conversion Guidelines
May 9th 2013Jennifer Erensen, associate director of health policy at Purdue Pharma L.P., discusses the clinical study "Review of opioid conversion recommendations from select clinical practice guidelines: all are not equal," presented at the 32nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Pain Society.
Read More