Tag: Pain Management

An online training module using “Edna”, a virtual elderly woman with chronic lower back pain as a case study, greatly improved medical student clinical skills. That’s the finding of a study done at the University of Pittsburgh and published in the May 2014 issue Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The module is the first curriculum resource created through the efforts of the National Institutes of Health Pain Consortium’s Centers of Excellence in Pain Education program (CoEPEs).

Here's another addition to our Third Age video collection. Press play to start learning.

Here's another addition to our ThirdAge video collection. Read more at www.thirdage.com. 

Scientists have identified new pain relief targets that could be used to provide relief from chemotherapy-induced pain. Researchers at King's College London made the discovery when investigating how pain occurs in nerves in the periphery of the body.

A release from the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council quotes Dr Marzia Malcangio a saying, "We have been investigating and identifying mechanisms underlying pain generation and our findings could help chemotherapy patients who suffer pain related side effects."

By Janet Komanchuk

The numbers involved in America’s problem with chronic pain are staggering and probably larger than most realize.

More than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, costing nearly $600 billion annually in medical treatments and lost productivity, according to the Institute of Medicine, which adds that the total surpasses that of all people affected by heart disease, diabetes, and cancer combined.

Relaxation is usually a good thing, but perhaps not when it comes to migraine, according to a new study.

Researchers from the Montefiore Headache Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that migraine sufferers who experienced reduced stress from one day to the next are at significantly greater risk of migraine onset on the subsequent day.

Although stress has often been believed to be a common trigger of headaches, the researchers found that relaxation following the heighted stress was an even more significant trigger.

From the Cleveland Clinic Brain & Spine Team

For some people, daily chores are a pain — literally. Up to 90 percent of people in the United States suffer from back pain at some point in their lives, and routine activities such as chores often cause flare-ups.

But the chores themselves aren’t to blame, says occupational therapist Michael Milicia, OT/L. It’s how you do them. Below, he offers tips to help you do your household scrubbing and yard work without triggering pain.

By Romie Mushtaq M.D.

Headaches are fifth-leading cause of emergency room visits among all Americans, according to a 2013 National Institutes of Health report that calls headaches a major public health problem.

The key to preventing headaches is, of course, to figure out what’s triggering them. While migraine and stress headaches can both be triggered by stress, migraines have many other possible triggers and they vary from one individual to the next.

Here's another addition to our ThirdAge Video Collection. Press play to start learning!

Women between the ages of 45 and 65 with rheumatoid arthritis or arthritis resulting from an injury are among the patients most likely to experience serious pain following a knee replacement, according to researchers from Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

Research done at the Beaumont Health Systems in Royal Oak, Michigan and published in the February 2014 online issue of the journal Spine has shown that patients who have a low back surgery called minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion end up better off in many ways than patients who have more invasive surgery to alleviate debilitating pain.

Psychological treatment often provides better relief for chronic pain than prescription drugs or surgery, according to a review published by the American Psychological Association. However, it’s used much less frequently.

 “Chronic pain affects 116 million American adults, making it more prevalent than heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, and traditional medical approaches are inadequate,” said lead author Mark P. Jensen, PhD, of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington.

From the Cleveland Clinic

Non-restorative sleep is the strongest independent predictor of widespread pain onset among adults over the age of 50, according to a study done at Keele University in Staffordshire UK and published the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology. The researchers also report that anxiety, memory impairment, and poor physical health among older adults may increase the risk of developing widespread pain.

When it comes to treating chronic pain, sedation may not always be the best choice before the actual procedure, according to new research.

 “Sedation doesn’t help, but it does add expense and risk,” says study leader Steven P. Cohen, M.D., a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “In some places, every patient is being sedated. Our research shows it should be used very sparingly.”

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