Research into the role of the brain in chronic pain
Some time ago, I wrote this paper, at the request of the journal Physical Therapy Reviews, on reconceptualising pain. It is a little old now but it has come to be a bit of a position paper. The position has four fundamentals, none of which will be very surprising to anyone I imagine:(i) pain does not provide a measure of the state of the … [Read more...]
From a biological perspective, I find CRPS very perplexing. So do many other people—the community of scientists that are pursuing better treatments, through a better understanding of the basic mechanisms, or by developing better animal models of CRPS, or by undertaking clinical investigations and clinical trials, stretches across … [Read more...]
More than a century ago, Harvard Professor Charles Burnett described a set of experiments in which healthy volunteers moved their hands in front of a mirror(1). He reported that watching the reflection of their own bodies disrupted the movement and perceived position of their limbs. Since then, many philosophers and psychologists have used … [Read more...]
We have one important caveat in relation to Freynhagen and Bennett’s review—that evidence based non-pharmacological treatment for neuropathic pain was absent.[1]Several randomised controlled trials show that graded motor imagery reduces pain and disability in chronic complex regional pain syndrome 1 (CRPS1) and phantom limb pain after … [Read more...]
British Pain Society manoeuvres – why the desperation
Despite the grumblings about the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellent (NICE) in the UK, it seems to be seen as a 'gold standard' in other countries. See this comment in Nature Taking the NICE path The United States can learn from the UK body that rates the effectiveness of medical procedures.... and our letter to the British … [Read more...]