Purpose: Cancer-related pain is prevalent among people with advanced cancer. To improve accessibility and engagement with pain-cognitive behavioral therapy (pain-CBT), we developed and tested a serious game hosted within a mobile health intervention that delivers pain-CBT and pharmacologic support. The game focuses on teaching and practicing cognitive restructuring (CR), a central pain-CBT intervention component.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPreoperative negative affect is a risk factor for worse postoperative pain, but research investigating this association among patients undergoing thoracic surgery is inconsistent. Additionally, female patients often report greater negative affect and postoperative pain than males. This prospective observational study investigated the association between preoperative negative affect and postoperative pain after thoracic surgery and whether this association differed by sex.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Engagement in physical activity (PA) is often associated with better sleep quality and less pain severity among patients diagnosed with breast cancer. However, less research has focused on whether patients' PA prior to breast surgery, including their perceived decrease in PA level, is associated with worse preoperative sleep quality, and subsequently, greater postoperative pain. This longitudinal study investigated whether patients' preoperative PA was associated with their postoperative pain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: We examined associations of a self-reported history of childhood abuse with pain and physical functioning in patients with knee osteoarthritis (KOA) awaiting total knee arthroplasty (TKA). We also explored the potential moderating effects of positive childhood experiences (PCEs), an index of resilience, on these associations.
Methods: Prior to TKA, participants with KOA awaiting surgery ( = 239) completed self-report measures of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), PCEs, pain, and physical functioning.
Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is linked to an enhanced release of interleukin-6 (IL-6). Increased levels of IL-6 are associated with greater pain and insomnia. While total knee arthroplasty (TKA) typically results in the reduction of pain, for a subgroup of patients, pain does not improve.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Pain is common among people with advanced cancer. While opioids provide significant relief, incorporating psycho-behavioral treatments may improve pain outcomes. We examined patients' experiences with pain self-management and how their self-management of chronic, cancer-related pain may be complemented by behavioral mobile health (mHealth) interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver time, the focus of evidence-based acute pain medicine has shifted, from a focus on drugs and interventions (characterized by numbers needed to treat), to an appreciation of procedure-specific factors (characterized by guidelines and meta-analyses), and now anesthesiologists face the challenge to integrate our current approach with the concept of precision medicine. Psychometric and biopsychosocial markers can potentially guide clinicians on who may need more aggressive perioperative pain management, or who would respond particularly well to a given analgesic intervention. The challenge will be to identify an easily assessable set of parameters that will guide perioperative physicians in tailoring the analgesic strategy to procedure and patient.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: We investigated the impact of favorite music on pain processing among individuals with fibromyalgia. We also examined differences in pain processing between individuals with fibromyalgia and healthy controls (HC) while listening to favorite music and explored whether psychosocial factors contributed to these differences.
Methods: Individuals with fibromyalgia and HC completed baseline psychosocial questionnaires and then underwent quantitative sensory testing (QST) during 3 randomized music conditions (meditative music, favorite music, white noise).
Purpose: Patients with cancer may experience pain from cancer itself or its treatment. Additionally, chronic pain (CP) predating a patient's cancer diagnosis may make the etiology of pain less clear and the management of pain more complex. In this brief report, we investigated differences in biopsychosocial characteristics, pain severity, and opioid consumption, comparing groups of cancer patients with and without a history of CP who presented to the emergency department (ED) with a complaint of cancer-related pain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSupport Care Cancer
January 2024
Purpose: We developed and piloted a mobile health app to deliver cognitive behavioral therapy for pain (pain-CBT), remote symptom monitoring, and pharmacologic support for patients with pain from advanced cancer.
Methods: Using an iterative process of patient review and feedback, we developed the STAMP + CBT app. The app delivers brief daily lessons from pain-CBT and pain psychoeducation, adapted for advanced cancer.
Anesthesiology
April 2024
Background And Objectives: Knee osteoarthritis is one of the primary causes of chronic pain among older adults and because of the aging population, the number of total knee arthroplasties (TKAs) performed is exponentially increasing. While pain reduction is a goal of TKA, movement-evoked pain is rarely assessed pre- and post-TKA. We characterized the distributions of change in pain, function, and situational catastrophizing in patients from presurgery to 3 months postsurgery and explored associations among these pre-post changes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic pain is highly prevalent and is linked to a broad range of comorbidities, including sleep disorders. Epidemiological and clinical evidence suggests that chronic sleep disruption (CSD) leads to heightened pain sensitivity, referred to as CSD-induced hyperalgesia. However, the underlying mechanisms are unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Psychosocial disorders have been linked to chronic postoperative opioid use and the development of postoperative pain. The potential interaction between sex and psychosocial factors with respect to opioid use after elective spine surgery in the elderly has not yet been evaluated. Our aim was to assess whether any observed association of anxiety or depression indicators with opioid consumption in the first 72 hours after elective spine surgery varies by sex in adults ≥65 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPain is common and variable in its severity among hospitalized patients with cancer. Although biopsychosocial factors are well established as modulators of chronic pain, less is known about what patient-level factors are associated with worse pain outcomes among hospitalized cancer patients. This prospective cohort study included patients with active cancer presenting to the emergency department (ED) with pain severity of ≥4/10 and followed pain outcomes longitudinally throughout hospital admission.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To examine the relationship between postoperative pain and opioid use and the development of postoperative delirium (POD), with attention to the preoperative opioid use status of patients.
Methods: This was a secondary analysis of data from a prospective observational study of patients (N = 219; ≥70 years old) scheduled to undergo elective spine surgery. Maximal daily pain scores (0-10) and postoperative morphine milligram equivalents per hour (MME/hr) were determined for postoperative days 1-3 (D1-3).
Objectives: Sleep disturbance negatively impacts the quality of life and recovery. Our objective was to evaluate the relationship between the individual patient and surgical factors with greater sleep disturbance following breast surgery.
Methods: In this prospective longitudinal study, patients completed validated measures regarding sleep disturbance, pain, opioid use, and psychological symptoms preoperatively and then 2 weeks, 6 and 12 months postoperatively.
We evaluated how pain processing and situational pain catastrophizing differed between 2 music interventions (Unwind and favorite music) and a control condition (white noise). Healthy adults (n = 70) completed quantitative sensory testing (QST) measuring pressure pain threshold (PPTh) and tolerance (PPTol), heat pain threshold (HPTh), offset analgesia (OA), temporal summation of pain (TSP), and conditioned pain modulation (CPM). Participants completed 3 QST rounds with the presence of white noise (control condition), a relaxing music app (Unwind), and their favorite music, which were presented in a randomized order.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is a knowledge gap in the physiological effects of short-term yoga exercise interventions.
Objective: To evaluate the feasibility of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) assessing the acute effects of a yoga exercise protocol practiced at 2 intensities (high or moderate) on temporal responses of a battery of systemic circulatory cytokines in healthy yoga-naïve adults.
Methods: This study was a three-arm, pre-post pilot-RCT employing a single bout of yoga exercise intervention.
Objective: To assess whether brief mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy (MBCBT) could enhance the benefits of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in improving pain and pain-related disability. Specifically, to determine 1) whether patients who received MBCBT differed from matched controls who received treatment-as-usual with regard to postsurgical pain outcomes and 2) whether changes in pain catastrophizing, depression, or anxiety explained the potential effects of MBCBT on pain outcomes.
Design: Pilot clinical trial.