Ref Consumer info thread

[Jon Newman]

I'm starting this thread as a sort of consumer's "red file." What I'm specifically soliciting are articles written for the lay public that help convey an updated understanding of pain sciences in the context of neuromusculoskeletal medicine.

For example, this NY Times article by Gina Kolata-- The Pain May Be Real, but the Scan Is Deceiving

Add your own finds here.

[Diane]

Good idea Jon. Maybe it should be called "Consumer Red File."
This sounds familiar (from the article):

“We often see patients who have already had M.R.I. scans,” Dr. Mirza said. “They are fixated on the abnormality and come to a surgeon to try to get the abnormality fixed. They’ll come in with the report in hand.”

[ian s]

knowing .....

However, Dr. Modic said, there was one effect of being told — patients felt worse about themselves when they knew they had a bulging disk. “If I tell you that you have a degenerated disk, basically I’m telling you you’re ugly,” Dr. Modic said.

really good article jon-----important to

[Jon Newman]

Way too tired? by Judy Foreman at the Boston Globe.

[Mary C]

Jon, that article is aimed straight at me!

Bruce Charlton mentioned the same in a paper on fatigue. I found a reference to his site here at SS: http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/

He hypothesised that we could consider fatigue as a type of pain, and meds as pain killers or anti-inflammatory rather than mood modifiers. Food for thought.

Mary

[Jason Silvernail]

This needs to be here: Association for Ethics in Spine Surgery.

Click the "News/Media Updates" to see a list of very interesting and relevant articles for the layperson. Especially applicable to anyone considering a surgical procedure for spine pain.

[Jon Newman]

Rod posted this elsewhere and I thought I'd post here as well. Thanks Rod.

I personally have some issues with the language but that doesn't mean others will.

[Jason Silvernail]

Variable-quality studies show that spinal manipulation, massage, exercise therapy,acupuncture, yoga, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and progressive relaxation are nondrug therapies that may be helpful for low back pain.

How could anyone not have issues with the language?
How can someone put spinal manipulation in the same sentence as yoga, acupuncture and relaxation as if the relevant evidence is equivalent???

[HeadStrongPT]

I had the same problem with the language as well, but at least this develops a framework to explore the relative efficacies of each guideline. CPGs are useful for that purpose if nothing else. I reviewed the article for mentions of acupuncture to see where they derived this particular guideline and came up with the following articles. It will take some time to look at the methodology, but it's nice to know they didn't just pull it out of their...hats.

Cherkin DC, Eisenberg D, Sherman KJ, Barlow W, Kaptchuk TJ, Street J,
et al. Randomized trial comparing traditional Chinese medical acupuncture, therapeutic massage, and self-care education for chronic low back pain. Arch Intern Med. 2001;161:1081-8.

Furlan AD, van Tulder M, Cherkin D, Tsukayama H, Lao L, Koes B, et al. Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain: an updated systematic review within the framework of the cochrane collaboration. Spine. 2005;30:944-63.

Manheimer E, White A, Berman B, Forys K, Ernst E. Meta-analysis: acupuncture for low back pain. Ann Intern Med. 2005;142:651-63.

Kalauokalani D, Cherkin DC, Sherman KJ, Koepsell TD, Deyo RA. Lessons from a trial of acupuncture and massage for low back pain: patient expectations and treatment effects. Spine. 2001;26:1418-24.

[Jon Newman]

I personally have some issues with the language but that doesn't mean others will.--Jon

I didn't realize how generalizable that statement was.

[BB]

I reviewed the article for mentions of acupuncture to see where they derived this particular guideline and came up with the following articles. It will take some time to look at the methodology, but it's nice to know they didn't just pull it out of their...hats.

Lucky for us there is Luke, whose just published an excellent article on therapuetic needling.

[HeadStrongPT]

I overheard someone in the Sc.D. program at Tech is doing some investigation into dry needling. I'm looking forward to reading Luke's review as I know nothing about it.

[Jason Silvernail]

I didn't realize how generalizable that statement was.

Heh.
I did have other issues, that's just the one that jumped out at me the most.