Is pain treatment more helpful if it is provided by a friend, or is the help of a stranger better? A study conducted by researchers from the Universities of Wuerzburg, Amsterdam and Zurich investigated this question and found ...
Sep 26, 2018
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A UCL-led research team has identified a rare mutation that causes one family to have unusually low sensitivity to pain.
Dec 13, 2017
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(HealthDay)—For patients presenting to the emergency department in pain, who are subsequently admitted to the hospital, the cost per hour in moderate or severe pain averted is higher for patient-controlled analgesia versus ...
Jun 23, 2017
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Opioids are the most powerful painkillers. Researchers at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have now found that the analgesic effects of opioids are not exclusively mediated by opioid receptors in the brain, but ...
Jan 17, 2017
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A recent review found that most newborns that are included in control groups during clinical trials concerning minor painful procedures are denied analgesia, despite international guidelines stating that babies should be ...
Sep 21, 2015
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(HealthDay)—For patients with cervicogenic headache (CH), the classical technique for greater occipital nerve (GON) block results in two weeks of analgesia, compared with at least 24 weeks for the subcompartmental technique, ...
Sep 15, 2015
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Black children were less likely to receive any pain medication for moderate pain and less likely to receive opioids for severe pain than white children in a study of racial disparities in the pain management of children with ...
Sep 14, 2015
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High rates of anxiety and depression amongst patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have led many researchers to believe there could be a causal relationship between psychological factors and IBS symptoms. Now, scientists ...
Oct 02, 2014
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(Medical Xpress)—The human brain's exquisite complexity and power make it a unique evolutionary marvel. One of the brain's more interesting abilities is known as the placebo effect, in which no more than the expectation ...
The hormone oxytocin may mediate processes such as empathy, trust, and social learning. These are key elements of the patient-physician relationship, which is an important mediator of placebo responses, according to background ...
Oct 22, 2013
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An analgesic (also known as a painkiller) is any member of the group of drugs used to relieve pain (achieve analgesia). The word analgesic derives from Greek an- ("without") and algos ("pain").
Analgesic drugs act in various ways on the peripheral and central nervous systems; they include paracetamol (para-acetylaminophenol, also known in the US as acetaminophen), the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as the salicylates, and opioid drugs such as morphine and opium. They are distinct from anesthetics, which reversibly eliminate sensation.
In choosing analgesics, the severity and response to other medication determines the choice of agent; the WHO pain ladder, originally developed in cancer-related pain, is widely applied to find suitable drugs in a stepwise manner. The analgesic choice is also determined by the type of pain: for neuropathic pain, traditional analgesics are less effective, and there is often benefit from classes of drugs that are not normally considered analgesics, such as tricyclic antidepressants and anticonvulsants.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
