Archive for April 21st, 2009
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PAIN CLINIC: OVERVIEW
While a tremendous amount is known about the mechanics of pain compared with twenty years ago, the specialised pain team still has to find devices which will accurately give an idea of how to assess pain in any particular individual. Data is collected through the visual analogue scales described earlier in this book and the [...]
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SLEEP AND EXERCISE IN PAIN
Sleep. A third of our lives is spent in sleep. Of the remainder, some is spent in wishing that our small children would sleep longer, and, during our later years, some is spent wishing our sleep was less broken. According to I. Oswald in ‘The Oxford Companion to The Mind’: ‘Sleep is a healthy state [...]
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SPECIFIC PAIN CONTROL TECHNIQUES
• Suggestions of deep relaxation in themselves can be effective as they reduce the anxiety that often accompanies pain. These suggestions can be enhanced by providing imagery under pleasant environmental conditions, with as much visual and sensory imagery as possible. For example, asking patients to imagine that they are in a mountain cabin in the [...]
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PAIN: HOW TO HELP?
Massage Qualified masseurs are often found these days working with the pain unit. Massage can range from the typical European style of massage to the Oriental-style Shiatsu therapy now popular with patients attending pain units. The main difference from conventional massage is that Shiatsu uses the points and principles of acupuncture. Recently, with the epidemic [...]