Supporting the Health and Well-Being of Caregivers of Persons with Pain Strategies to address stress and improve self-care.

This article is part of a series, Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone, published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute. Results of focus groups, conducted as part of the AARP Public Policy Institute's No Longer Home Alone video project, supported evidence that family caregivers aren't given the information they need to manage the complex care regimens of family members. This series of articles and accompanying videos aims to help nurses provide caregivers with the tools they need to manage their family member's health care at home.

Correlation between epidural space depth measured with ultrasound and MRI compared to clinical loss of resistance when performing lumbar epidural steroid injection.

Background: This prospective study assessed the accuracy of MRI and ultrasound (US) measurements as a preprocedural assessment tool for predicting clinical loss of resistance depth (CLORD) during fluoroscopy-guided lumbar epidural steroid injections (ESIs).

Materials And Methods: Sixty patients enrolled received lumbar ESIs at an academic chronic pain clinic. The MRI measurement calculated the distance between the skin and the posterior epidural space, while US measurements included transverse and parasagittal oblique views of the interlaminar space.

Managing Older Adults' Chronic Pain: Higher-Risk Interventions How to help caregivers promote safe pain management.

This article is part of a series, Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone, published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute. Results of focus groups, conducted as part of the AARP Public Policy Institute's No Longer Home Alone video project, supported evidence that family caregivers aren't given the information they need to manage the complex care regimens of family members. This series of articles and accompanying videos aims to help nurses provide caregivers with the tools they need to manage their family member's health care at home.

Managing Older Adults' Chronic Pain: Lower-Risk Interventions Nurses can engage family caregivers in creating, implementing, and evaluating the treatment plan.

This article is part of a series, Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone, published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute. Results of focus groups, conducted as part of the AARP Public Policy Institute's No Longer Home Alone video project, supported evidence that family caregivers aren't given the information they need to manage the complex care regimens of family members. This series of articles and accompanying videos aims to help nurses provide caregivers with the tools they need to manage their family member's health care at home.

Supporting the Health and Well-Being of Caregivers of Persons with Pain.

This article is part of a series, Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone, published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute. Results of focus groups, conducted as part of the AARP Public Policy Institute's No Longer Home Alone video project, supported evidence that family caregivers aren't given the information they need to manage the complex care regimens of family members. This series of articles and accompanying videos aims to help nurses provide caregivers with the tools they need to manage their family member's health care at home.

Managing Older Adults' Chronic Pain: Higher-Risk Interventions.

This article is part of a series, Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone, published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute. Results of focus groups, conducted as part of the AARP Public Policy Institute's No Longer Home Alone video project, supported evidence that family caregivers aren't given the information they need to manage the complex care regimens of family members. This series of articles and accompanying videos aims to help nurses provide caregivers with the tools they need to manage their family member's health care at home.

Managing Older Adults' Chronic Pain: Lower-Risk Interventions.

This article is part of a series, Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone, published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute. Results of focus groups, conducted as part of the AARP Public Policy Institute's No Longer Home Alone video project, supported evidence that family caregivers aren't given the information they need to manage the complex care regimens of family members. This series of articles and accompanying videos aims to help nurses provide caregivers with the tools they need to manage their family member's health care at home.

Development of a national pain management competency profile to guide entry-level physiotherapy education in Canada.

Background: National strategies from North America call for substantive improvements in entry-level pain management education to help reduce the burden of chronic pain. Past work has generated a valuable set of interprofessional pain management competencies to guide the education of future health professionals. However, there has been very limited work that has explored the development of such competencies for individual professions in different regions.

History and Epidemiology of Cancer Pain.

Pain is indelibly associated with the cancer experience. A systematic review and meta-analysis indicate that the prevalence of cancer pain is 55% during anticancer treatment, 66.4% in advanced, metastatic, or terminal disease, and 39.

Responding to the Opioid Epidemic: Educational Competencies for Pain and Substance Use Disorder from the Medical Schools of the University of California.

Objective: The University of California (UC) leadership sought to develop a robust educational response to the epidemic of opioid-related deaths. Because the contributors to this current crisis are multifactorial, a comprehensive response requires educating future physicians about safe and effective management of pain, safer opioid prescribing, and identification and treatment of substance use disorder (SUD).

Methods: The six UC medical schools appointed an opioid crisis workgroup to develop educational strategies and a coordinated response to the opioid epidemic.

Cancer Pain Treatment and Management: An Interprofessional Learning Module for Prelicensure Health Professional Students.

Introduction: The imperative of medicine is to treat suffering and to cure when possible. This learning module has been designed to expand providers' knowledge of how to sustain life, restore health, relieve suffering, and provide comfort for people who are experiencing cancer-induced pain. The module uses cancer pain as the context through which students can learn interprofessional, team-based, and person-centered approaches to delivery of care.

UC Davis Train-the-Trainer Primary Care Pain Management Fellowship: Addressing the Pain Management Education Gap.

Problem: Primary care providers are responsible for the majority of pain care and opioid prescribing, but they are often inadequately trained. Training current providers to address the crisis of excessive opioid prescribing and inadequate pain management is a substantial workforce problem that requires urgent action. This educational need is vast and requires a staged solution to amplify its effect.

The prevalence and awareness of sleep apnea in patients suffering chronic pain: an assessment using the STOP-Bang sleep apnea questionnaire.

Purpose: Some patient subsets are at higher risk of sleep apnea, including patients with chronic pain. However, it is unclear whether patients and their caregivers are aware of the possibly increased risk of sleep apnea in this population. Chronic pain is often treated with opioids which may decrease both the central respiratory drive and the patency of the upper airway, potentially contributing to this sleep disorder.

The Art of Analgesia: A Pilot Study of Art Museum Tours to Decrease Pain and Social Disconnection Among Individuals with Chronic Pain.

Objective: This mixed-methods study examines the feasibility of art museum tours (Art Rx) as an intervention for individuals with chronic pain.

Methods: Art Rx provided 1-hour docent-led tours in an art museum to individuals with chronic pain. Survey data were collected pre-tour, immediately post-tour, and at three weeks post-tour.

Advancing Simulation-Based Education in Pain Medicine.

Background: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has recently implemented milestones and competencies as a framework for training fellows in Pain Medicine, but individual programs are left to create educational platforms and assessment tools that meet ACGME standards.

Objectives: In this article, we discuss the concept of milestone-based competencies and the inherent challenges for implementation in pain medicine. We consider simulation-based education (SBE) as a potential tool for the field to meet ACGME goals through advancing novel learning opportunities, engaging in clinically relevant scenarios, and mastering technical and nontechnical skills.

Scope and Nature of Pain- and Analgesia-Related Content of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE).

Background: "The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two substantial public health challenges-reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can result from the use of opioid medications" [1]. Improved pain education for health care providers is an essential component of the multidimensional response to both still-unmet challenges [2,3]. Despite the importance of licensing examinations in assuring competency in health care providers, there has been no prior appraisal of pain and related content within the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE).

Risk Management for Opioid Prescribing in the Treatment of Patients With Pain From Cancer or Terminal Illness: Inadvertent Oversight or Taboo?

As the United States experiences an epidemic of prescription drug abuse, and guidelines on safe practices in prescribing opioids in chronic pain have subsequently emerged from professional organizations and governmental agencies, limited guidance exists for prescribers of opioids to treat pain in patients with cancer or terminal illness. Patients with active cancer or terminal illness often have pain and are frequently prescribed opioids and other controlled substances. Current studies suggest that patients with cancer have similar rates of risk for misuse, abuse, and addiction as the general public.

Medial branch nerve block and ablation as a novel approach to pain related to vertebral compression fracture.

Purpose Of Review: This review offers a critical examination of the biomechanical model that posits the posterior elements as a substantial contributor to pain in vertebral fracture. Further, the review assesses the treatment of posterior-element-associated pain in the setting of vertebral compression fracture in relation to vertebral augmentation.

Recent Findings: In 2015, the only prospective randomized trial comparing percutaneous vertebroplasty with facet blockade was published in which authors found that percutaneous vertebroplasty produced better pain relief and function based on Oswestry Disability Index, Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire, and visual analog scale in the short term (≤1 week).