APS Press Room
News Highlights from The Journal of Pain • June 2005
The Peer Review Journal of the American Pain Society
| For immediate release | Contact: Chuck Weber (847) 705-1802 |
STUDY SHOWS PAIN INCREASES HEART RATE IN MEN, BUT NOT WOMEN
When men have pain, it’s a heart-felt response – but not for women, according to Canadian researchers who reported that men exposed to experimental pain stimuli showed elevations in their heart rates while female subjects did not.
The relationship between heart rate and pain perception is gender related, yet clinicians frequently use heart rate as an objective indicator to help validate self-reports of pain, reported co-authors Yannick Tousignant-Laflamme, Pierre Rainville and Serge Marchond of the Universite de Sherbrooke in the June issue of The Journal of Pain. “While it is well established that a painful stimulus does produce many physiologic changes, the scope of the relationship between pain and physiologic changes has been shown to vary noticeably between individuals,” they wrote.
The researchers concluded that the gender differences in heart rate responses they found could be explained by the role sex hormones play in pain perception and by gender differences in the reactivity of the cardiovascular and autonomic nervous systems. According to the authors, “This means that even though heart rate increases generally are considered to be a good indicator of pain levels in men, they cannot be used to discard a patient’s evaluation of pain in a clinical setting.” However, they emphasized that their results suggest that using heart rate as a complimentary approach to pain measurement is not appropriate for women.
CONFIDENCE IN PAIN COPING LOWERS DISABILITY AND DEPRESSION IN ELDERLY PATIENTS
Chronic pain is a serious health problem in the elderly, but a new study published in The Journal of Pain shows that older adults who are self confident about coping with their pain have less disability and depression as a result.
Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine studied 140 retirement community residents (mean age 81.7 and 88% female) to determine if higher self-efficacy would be associated with lower levels of pain, disability and depression, and also with greater use of coping methods, such as relaxation, staying busy and regular exercise.
According to authors Judith A. Turner, Mary Ersek and Carol Kemp, this is the first such study to examine the impact of pain self-efficacy in a retirement community. The favorable outcomes for the residents who employed coping strategies, according to the authors, suggest the value of interventions to increase self efficacy by teaching pain coping skills and helping individuals with pain to resist thinking they are helpless.
WHAT IS SATISFACTORY PAIN RELIEF?
According to a study published this month in The Journal of Pain, post-surgical patients are satisfied with their overall pain management if their average pain levels are mild. They do not expect pain management to eliminate their post-op pain entirely.
Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine studied 207 postoperative patients to evaluate their levels of satisfaction with pain relief. They reported that pre-recovery to post-recovery changes in pain intensity were not significantly associated with overall satisfaction. However, ratings of average pain levels and changes in pain were associated most frequently with pain-relief satisfaction.
Co-authors Mark Jensen, Susan Martin and Raymond Cheung said their findings support the importance of minimizing pain throughout the post-operative period and that most patients understand that complete elimination of post-operative pain isn’t possible.
Note: The opinions and ideas expressed in articles appearing in The Journal of Pain do not necessarily reflect those of the editor and publisher or of the American Pain Society.