{"id":3002,"date":"2021-09-28T09:17:37","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T09:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/?p=3002"},"modified":"2021-09-28T09:17:39","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T09:17:39","slug":"pain-body-map-can-predict-chronic-pain-outcomes-a-new-study-suggests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/2021\/09\/28\/pain-body-map-can-predict-chronic-pain-outcomes-a-new-study-suggests\/","title":{"rendered":"Pain Body Map Can Predict Chronic Pain Outcomes \u2013 a New Study Suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The very first question a doctor asks you when you go with the complaint of pain is, \u201cwhere does it hurt?\u201d It is a natural and obvious starting point for a diagnosis. But this seemingly simple question has much more weight to it than meets the eyes. A paper<\/a>, published in PLOS ONE suggests that the pain distribution reported by a patient is enough on its own to predict a host of other information, like its intensity, impact, and consequences ( after 3 months) of treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 A lead researcher, Benedict J. Alter from the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh reported that <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distribution of pain in the body is a vital component of pain assessment. Using a hierarchical clustering approach with only a patient\u2019s reported pain areas on a digital body map, we found multiple distinct subgroups of patients \u2026 [with] significantly different pain intensity, quality, and impact.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For the study, the team used a body map consisted of 2 drawings, one of the fronts & one of the back views of the body, all split into 74 regions in total. 22,000 patients of chronic pain from over 7 pain management clinics were asked to indicate which regions were causing pain, and then they were compared for health, pain, and three-month outcomes against the pain body map right when the treatment begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team said in a statement<\/a>, \u201cUsing an algorithmic approach, we found that how a patient reports the bodily distribution of their chronic pain affects nearly all aspects of the pain experience, including what happens three months later,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team found that all the patients with chronic pain fit into 9 groups, based on pain intensity, impact on the patient\u2019s life, pain quality, demographic and medical characteristics. Another interesting finding was that the more widespread a patient\u2019s pain is, the more persistent it is. That, they realized, might imply<\/a> something important about how pain affects the brain. They also found that group G or group with neck, shoulder, and lower back pain had the worst three-month outcome. They used an algorithmic approach to disclose that such patients have far more pain characteristics than the two widespread pain groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201c[The] definitive relationship of body map cluster assignment and pain pathophysiology remains to be seen,\u201d the paper cautions, \u201c[and] even within accepted diagnoses lies significant [differences] in patient characteristics.\u201d However, they say, \u201cgiven its speed and ease of use for patients, we predict that body map cluster assignment will be a useful component of chronic pain biosignature development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The very first question a doctor asks you when you go with the complaint of pain is, \u201cwhere does it hurt?\u201d It is a natural and obvious starting point for a diagnosis. But this seemingly simple question has much more weight to it than meets the eyes. A paper, published in PLOS ONE suggests that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[736,737,734,735,733],"class_list":["post-3002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chronic-pain","tag-clinical-outcomes","tag-outcomes","tag-pain","tag-pain-body-map"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3002"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3006,"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002\/revisions\/3006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scientificasia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}