Feature Channels: Pain

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Ancient Chinese traditional medicine significantly reduces the side effects of rectal cancer treatments that, in some patients, can be so toxic that treatment must be paused, or stopped, which diminishes its effectiveness.

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A new scientific review of 148 studies enrolling over 4.3 million adult chronic pain patients treated with prescription opioid painkillers has found that nearly one in ten patients experiences opioid dependence or opioid use disorder and nearly one in three shows symptoms of dependence and opioid use disorder.

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Pain management is an important component of caring for adults with cerebral palsy. However, it's the least understood comorbidity in the adult cerebral palsy population. A study led by Mark Peterson, Ph.D., M.S., FACSM, a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at University of Michigan Health, found that adults living with cerebral palsy had a very high occurrence of pain, with 90% having a pain history and 74% having multiple diagnoses of pain coming from different origins such as the lower back, irritable bowels, joint arthritis and chronic headaches.

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 Thoracic ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (TOPLL) is a rare condition associated with ectopic bone formation in the thoracic spine. A long-term follow-up study from Japan shows significant and lasting improvement in outcomes with posterior decompression and fixation surgery for patients with T-OPLL, reports The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.

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Mark Lumley, Ph.D., distinguished professor of psychology in Wayne State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was recently awarded the 2024 Nathan W. Perry, Jr. Award for Career Service to Health Psychology from the Society for Health Psychology.

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Researchers at Texas Tech Health El Paso and the University of Texas at Dallas will look at the origin of this neuropathic pain on a microscopic level in hope of finding ways to treat it without opioids. The groundbreaking research is funded by a $3.1 million, five-year R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Texas Tech Health El Paso is receiving $1.05 million of the grant.

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Angela Starkweather, an accomplished nurse-scientist and clinician with extensive higher education experience, has been named dean of the Rutgers School of Nursing.

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Jeffrey Gold, PhD, Principal Investigator at the Biobehavioral Pain Lab at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, has been pioneering pediatric research that explores the potential of VR and AR technologies for more than 20 years. Several randomized controlled trials at CHLA inform his team’s ongoing work, including two recently published studies.

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Publishing in Nature, University of North Carolina School of Medicine researchers and colleagues discovered a pain control pathway that links the cingulate cortex in the front of the brain, through the pons region of the brainstem, to cerebellum in the back of the brain.

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In a study in ACS Central Science, researchers have identified a strategy to design safer opioids. They showed that an experimental opioid, which binds to an unconventional spot in the receptor, suppresses pain in animal models with fewer side effects — most notably those linked to fatal overdoses.

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A multi-institutional study found that 1 in 6 youths fill an opioid prescription prior to surgery, and 3% of patients were still filling opioid prescriptions three to six months after surgery, indicating persistent opioid use and possible opioid dependence.

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Physical therapy can be a life changer, helping people address chronic pain, recovery from surgery or injury, or getting back to a beloved sport. But that’s only if physical therapy is done — and done right. Faculty from the Tufts University School of Medicine Department of Rehabilitation Sciences offer tips on doing physical therapy at home.

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Inequities in pain medication treatment received postpartum, after giving birth, were found in a Cedars-Sinai study of 18,000 women. The disparities were observed even among patients reporting the highest pain levels.

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The American Neuromuscular Foundation is excited to announce Isván Alvarez Herrera, CNCT, as the recipient of the 2024 Technologist Best Abstract Award for his abstract titled, “Cutaneous Silent Period in a Patient With Warm Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.”

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A new study led by researchers with The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine found that the most profound source of distress for patients with sickle cell disease in a home visit program was anticipating and going to acute care centers to manage their acute pain.

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A drug used to prevent migraine may also be effective in people with migraine who experience rebound headaches, according to a new study published in the June 26, 2024, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Research published in Science Advances traced the history of human’s ability to feel cold back to the molecular underpinnings of the cold and menthol sensor TRPM8 over hundreds of millions of years. The findings could lead to non-addictive pain medications, a crucial development given the opioid crisis.

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A new study led by UCLA Health and the U.S. Veterans Affairs Office found chronic pain among older adults could be significantly reduced through a newly developed psychotherapy that works by confronting past trauma and stress-related emotions that can exacerbate pain symptoms.

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Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a common cause of pain and joint stiffness. And while physical activity is known to ease symptoms, only one in 10 people regularly exercise.