A flexible format interdisciplinary treatment and rehabilitation program for chronic daily headache: patient clinical features, resource utilization and outcomes.

Objective: To describe the demographics, diagnoses, program duration, human resource utilization and outcomes of patients with chronic daily headache treated in an ambulatory, interdisciplinary, flexible format, treatment and rehabilitation program.

Background: Research indicates that multidisciplinary care is an effective approach to manage chronic daily headache, but little is known about the resources needed for effective care.

Methods: The study was a secondary data analysis within a cohort design of previously collected data.

Inter-rater reliability of the Active Straight-Leg Raise and One-Leg Standing tests in non-pregnant women.

Objective: To determine the inter-rater reliability of the Active Straight-Leg Raise and One-Leg Standing tests.

Design: Cross-sectional pilot study.

Subjects: Thirty-one women who were either not pregnant or at least 9 months post-partum.

The Canadian STOP-PAIN project: the burden of chronic pain-does sex really matter?

Objectives: The Canadian STOP-PAIN Project assessed the human and economic burden of chronic pain (CP) in individuals on waitlists of Canadian multidisciplinary pain treatment facilities. This article focuses on sex differences. Objectives were to (1) determine the pain characteristics and related biopsychosocial factors that best differentiated women and men with CP; and (2) examine whether public and private costs associated with CP differed according to sex.

The Canadian STOP-PAIN project - Part 2: What is the cost of pain for patients on waitlists of multidisciplinary pain treatment facilities?

Purpose: The Canadian STOP-PAIN Project was designed to document the human and economic burden of chronic pain in individuals on waitlists of Multidisciplinary Pain Treatment Facilities (MPTF). This paper describes the societal costs of their pain.

Methods: A subgroup of 370 patients was selected randomly from The Canadian STOP-PAIN Project.

The Canadian STOP-PAIN project - Part 1: Who are the patients on the waitlists of multidisciplinary pain treatment facilities?

Purpose: The Canadian STOP-PAIN Project assessed the human and economic burden of chronic pain in individuals on waitlists of Multidisciplinary Pain Treatment Facilities (MPTF). This article presents the patients' bio-psycho-social profile.

Methods: A sample of 728 patients was recruited from waitlists of eight university-affiliated MPTFs across Canada.

Trigger point injections for chronic non-malignant musculoskeletal pain: a systematic review.

Objective: This systematic review assessed the available published evidence on the efficacy and safety of using trigger point injection (TPI) to treat patients with chronic non-malignant musculoskeletal pain that had persisted for at least 3 months.

Methods: All published systematic reviews or randomized controlled trials detailing the use of TPI in patients with chronic, non-malignant musculoskeletal pain (persisting for >3 months) were identified by systematically searching literature databases and the Websites of various health technology assessment agencies, research registers, and guidelines sites up to July 2006.

Results: Although no systematic reviews were identified, 15 peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials met the inclusion criteria.

Piriformis syndrome: a rational approach to management.

Although rarely recognized, the piriformis syndrome appears to be a common cause of buttock and leg pain as a result of injury to the piriformis muscle. Four cases representing a broad spectrum of presentations are described here. The major findings include buttock tenderness extending from the sacrum to the greater trochanter and piriformis tenderness on rectal or pelvic examination.