A mobile visual diary for personal pain management

Back-pain is one of the most prolific health problems within the population and costs industry lost revenue due to the amount of days people have to take off in order to recover. In this paper, we have targeted this problem and suggested a mobile app for visually diarizing the pain experience of patients. The Android platform is utilized and its technology stack forms the basis for this 3D centric application. Positive evaluations obtained provide evidence of the promising nature of the approach and indicate several future directions of research within mobile pain management

PainDroid: An android-based virtual reality application for pain assessment

Earlier studies in the field of pain research suggest that little efficient intervention currently exists in response to the exponential increase in the prevalence of pain. In this paper, we present an Android application (PainDroid) with multimodal functionality that could be enhanced with Virtual Reality (VR) technology, which has been designed for the purpose of improving the assessment of this notoriously difficult medical concern. Pain- Droid has been evaluated for its usability and acceptability with a pilot group of potential users and clinicians, with initial results suggesting that it can be an effective and usable tool for improving the assessment of pain. Participant experiences indicated that the application was easy to use and the potential of the application was similarly appreciated by the clinicians involved in the evaluation. Our findings may be of considerable interest to healthcare providers, policy makers, and other parties that might be actively involved in the area of pain and VR research

Assessment of nerve involvement in the lumbar spine: agreement between magnetic resonance imaging, physical examination and pain drawing findings

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Detection of nerve involvement originating in the spine is a primary concern in the assessment of spine symptoms. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become the diagnostic method of choice for this detection. However, the agreement between MRI and other diagnostic methods for detecting nerve involvement has not been fully evaluated. The aim of this diagnostic study was to evaluate the agreement between nerve involvement visible in MRI and findings of nerve involvement detected in a structured physical examination and a simplified pain drawing.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Sixty-one consecutive patients referred for MRI of the lumbar spine were - without knowledge of MRI findings - assessed for nerve involvement with a simplified pain drawing and a structured physical examination. Agreement between findings was calculated as overall agreement, the p value for McNemar's exact test, specificity, sensitivity, and positive and negative predictive values.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>MRI-visible nerve involvement was significantly less common than, and showed weak agreement with, physical examination and pain drawing findings of nerve involvement in corresponding body segments. In spine segment L4-5, where most findings of nerve involvement were detected, the mean sensitivity of MRI-visible nerve involvement to a positive neurological test in the physical examination ranged from 16-37%. The mean specificity of MRI-visible nerve involvement in the same segment ranged from 61-77%. Positive and negative predictive values of MRI-visible nerve involvement in segment L4-5 ranged from 22-78% and 28-56% respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In patients with long-standing nerve root symptoms referred for lumbar MRI, MRI-visible nerve involvement significantly underestimates the presence of nerve involvement detected by a physical examination and a pain drawing. A structured physical examination and a simplified pain drawing may reveal that many patients with "MRI-invisible" lumbar symptoms need treatment aimed at nerve involvement. Factors other than present MRI-visible nerve involvement may be responsible for findings of nerve involvement in the physical examination and the pain drawing.</p

The course of pain drawings during a 10-week treatment period in patients with acute and sub-acute low back pain

BACKGROUND: Pain drawings are widely used as an assessment of patients' subjective pain in low back pain patients being considered for surgery. Less work has been done on primary health care patients. Moreover, the possible correlation between pain drawing modalities and other pain assessment methods, such as pain score and functional variables needs to be described. Thus, the objectives were to describe the course of pain drawings during treatment in primary health care for low back pain patients. METHODS: 160 primary health care outpatients with acute or sub-acute low back pain were studied during 10 weeks of a stay active concept versus manual therapy in addition to the stay active concept. The patients filled out 3 pain drawings each, at baseline and after 5 and 10 weeks of treatment. In addition the patients also reported pain and functional variables during the 3 measurement periods. RESULTS: The proportion of areas marked, the mean number of areas marked (pain drawing score), mean number of modalities used (area score), and the proportion of patients with pain radiation all decreased during the 10-week treatment period. Most of the improvement occurred during the first half of the period. The seven different pain modalities in the pain drawing were correlated to pain and functional variables. In case of no radiation some modalities were associated with more pain and disability than others, a finding that grew stronger over time. For patients with pain radiation, the modality differences were smaller and inconsistent. CONCLUSION: Pain modalities are significantly correlated with pain and functional variables. There is a shift from painful modalities to less painful ones over time

Prevalence of Hip or Groin Pain in Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

Musculoskeletal pain is a common cause of pain in adolescence and can be an important predictor of future pain. The prevalence of hip or groin pain that could potentially affect different adolescent populations has not yet been systematically reviewed. This systematic review aimed to determine the prevalence of hip or groin pain in this population. Five electronic databases were searched until January 2019 for eligible studies that included males and females 13 to 19 years of age. Study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments were completed by 2 independent researchers. Based on inclusion criteria, 8 population-based, 8 clinical, and 4 sports populations were included. Studies were conducted in Europe, North America, and Australia. The prevalence was dichotomized into "0 to 3 months" and "3 months and above." Meta-analyses were performed to estimate the prevalence from 0 to 3 months, and individual estimates were reported for studies of 3 months and above. The overall prevalence of hip or groin pain in all adolescents from 0 to 3 months was 12% (95% confidence interval [CI] 6%, 23%) based on 10 studies, and was 7% (95% CI 6%, 10%) based on 7 population studies. Caution should be applied to these estimates due to substantial study heterogeneity. The pain prevalence in cerebral palsy from 0 to 3 months based on 4 studies was 13% (95% CI 10%, 15%). Individual prevalence estimates were 6% and 31% in obese and 4% in hypermobility populations, respectively, and ranged from 6% to 100% in 4 sports studies. The validity of these estimates is compromised by poor methodological quality.</div

Sciatica-like symptoms and the sacroiliac joint: clinical features and differential diagnosis

Item does not contain fulltextPURPOSE: To compare the clinical features of patients with sacroiliac joint (SIJ)-related sciatica-like symptoms to those with sciatica from nerve root compression and to investigate the necessity to perform radiological imaging in patients with sciatica-like symptoms derived from the SIJ. METHODS: Patients with pain radiating below the buttocks with a duration of 4 weeks to 1 year were included. After physical and radiological examinations, a diagnosis of SI joint-related pain, pain due to disk herniation, or a combination of these two causes was made. RESULTS: Patients with SIJ-related leg pain (n = 77/186) were significantly more often female, had shorter statue, a shorter duration of symptoms, and had more often pain radiating to the groin and a history of a fall on the buttocks. Muscle weakness, corkscrew phenomenon, finger-floor distance >/=25 cm, lumbar scoliosis, positive Bragard or Kemp sign, and positive leg raising test were more often present when radiologic nerve root compression was present. Although these investigations may help, MRI of the spine is necessary to discriminate between the groups. CONCLUSIONS: Sciatica-like symptoms derived from the SIJ can clinically mimic a radiculopathy. We suggest to perform a thorough physical examination of the spine, SI joints, and hips with additional radiological tests to exclude other causes

MSU Classification for herniated lumbar discs on MRI: toward developing objective criteria for surgical selection

Currently, there are over 300,000 lumbar discectomies performed in the US annually without an objective standard for patient selection. A prospective clinical outcome study of 200 cases with 5-year follow-up was used to develop and validate an MRI-based classification scheme to eliminate as much ambiguity as possible. 100 consecutive lumbar microdiscectomies were performed between 1992 and 1995 based on the criteria for “substantial” herniation on MRI. This series was used to develop the MSU Classification as an objective measure of lumbar disc herniation on MRI to define “substantial”. It simply classifies herniation size as 1-2-3 and location as A-B-C, with inter-examiner reliability of 98%. A second prospective series of 100 discectomies was performed between 2000 and 2002, based on the new criteria, to validate this classification scheme. All patients with size-1 lesions were electively excluded from surgical consideration in our study. The Oswestry Disability Index from both series was better than most published outcome norms for lumbar microdiscectomy. The two series reported 96 and 90% good to excellent outcomes, respectively, at 1 year, and 84 and 80% at 5 years. The most frequent types of herniation selected for surgery in each series were types 2-B and 2-AB, suggesting the combined importance of both size and location. The MSU Classification is a simple and reliable method to objectively measure herniated lumbar disc. When used in correlation with appropriate clinical findings, the MSU Classification can provide objective criteria for surgery that may lead to a higher percentage of good to excellent outcomes