Pain Management at the End of Life
The end stages of chronic, progressive, life-limiting diseases bring a host of difficult symptoms and causes of suffering. There are disease-mediated symptoms, such as pain, dyspnea, fatigue, and loss of…
Ethics of Research in Patients with Pain
Ethics and Science need to shake hands. Dr. RICHARD CLARKE CABOT, 1936 Medical experimentation has a long history. Biblical references suggest that as early as the sixth century bce ,…
Pain Management in the Critically Ill Patient
Pain in the critically ill is poorly understood. Only recently has attention and investigation turned toward the issues of pain assessment and treatment in this patient population, and existing literature…
Radiation Safety and Use of Radiographic Contrast Agents in Pain Medicine
Overview of Radiation Safety Pain practitioners have come to rely on fluoroscopy and, to a lesser but growing extent, on computed tomography (CT) to facilitate image-guided pain treatment techniques. Fluoroscopy…
Joint Injections
Intra-articular (IA) joint and bursa injections are used to treat pain in the joint and surrounding structures. Musculoskeletal system disorders, including osteoarthritis, are some of the most common medical conditions…
Pain Management in the Emergency Department
Emergency physicians provide acute care for an extraordinarily broad range of illnesses and injuries, the majority of which involves some degree of pain. Emergency providers also cause pain in the…
Intrathecal Drug Delivery: Patient Selection, Trialing, and Implantation
Intrathecal drug delivery for the treatment of pain is an outgrowth of pioneering research into spinal cord mechanisms and receptors that modulate nociceptive signal transmission to and within the central…
Spinal Cord and Peripheral Nerve Stimulation
Spinal Cord Stimulation Spinal cord stimulation (SCS), sometimes called dorsal column stimulation, describes the use of pulsed electrical energy near the spinal cord to control pain. This technique was first…
Intradiscal Procedures for the Treatment of Discogenic Lower Back and Leg Pain
Summary Although establishing the diagnosis of lumbar disk herniation with associated leg pain is usually intuitive, diagnosis and treatment of lumbar discogenic pain remain difficult. It may account for one…
