Patient punctuality and clinic performance: observations from an academic-based private practice pain centre: a prospective quality improvement study.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of an intervention to alter patient unpunctuality. The major hypothesis was that the intervention will change the distribution of patient unpunctuality by decreasing patient tardiness and increasing patient earliness.

Design: Prospective Quality Improvement.

Moving beyond the limitations of the visual analog scale for measuring pain: novel use of the general labeled magnitude scale in a clinical setting.

Objective: Quantifying pain intensity is challenging, particularly for patients with chronic pain. The visual analog scale (VAS) is limited by ceiling effects that often leave patients with no ability to quantify worsening pain. The goal of this study was to determine whether the general Labeled Magnitude Scale (gLMS) can be feasibly used to measure pain clinically while overcoming limitations of the VAS.

How process analysis could improve the implementation of spinal cord stimulation treatment for chronic pain.

SUMMARY Spinal cord stimulation has been in clinical use for the treatment of chronic pain for over four decades. Since the initial use by Norman Shealy, the indications for its use have increased steadily over the decades to include neuropathic pain owing to failed back surgery syndrome, complex regional pain syndrome and painful diabetic peripheral neuropathies. To date, the precise mechanism of action of spinal cord stimulation remains unclear, yet it is still one of the most expensive interventional treatment modalities available in pain medicine with increasing application across the world.