Perineural dexamethasone extends analgesia duration in upper limb surgery blocks versus bupivacaine alone
Can a common steroid make pain relief from arm surgery last longer?
A double-blinded RCT in 90 ASA I/II patients undergoing upper limb procedures found adding 4 mg perineural dexamethasone to bupivacaine sign…
Adding a tiny amount of common steroid dexamethasone to arm surgery numbing shots nearly doubled pain relief time to over 20 hours with few …
Telemedicine-Assisted Buprenorphine Induction Non-Inferior to Standard Care for OUD Retention
Can starting addiction treatment by video work as well as in-person visits?
A randomized controlled non-inferiority trial in 138 adults with opioid use disorder in India found telemedicine-assisted buprenorphine indu…
Patients starting opioid addiction treatment via video calls stay in care just as well as those with in-person visits during the first week.
Augmented reality game shows no significant effect on persistent opioid use after pediatric surgery
Augmented reality game shows no clear advantage over regular game for pediatric surgery pain
A pilot RCT of 66 opioid-naïve pediatric patients undergoing major surgery found no statistically significant difference in persistent opioi…
Playing an augmented reality scavenger hunt after major surgery did not lower opioid use or pain levels in children compared to a regular ga…
Pain Neuroscience Education shows short-term benefit for PTA student attitudes, not sustained at 3 months
Can a single lecture change how future therapists think about pain?
A small RCT in 41 Turkish physiotherapy assistant students compared a single Pain Neuroscience Education lecture to traditional pain educati…
A single lecture on pain neuroscience briefly changed future therapists' beliefs, but the difference faded away after three months without o…
Sequenced care pathway not superior to pain navigator for Veterans with low back pain at 3 months
Two care pathways for Veterans' low back pain showed similar results at three months
A cluster randomized clinical trial of 1817 Veterans with low back pain found that a sequenced care pathway (SCP) was not superior to a pain…
A simpler pain navigator approach worked just as well as a complex program for Veterans with low back pain after three months.
tDCS shows craving reduction in male methadone patients; machine learning algorithm achieves 94% diagnostic accuracy
Small study tests brain stimulation and AI for opioid addiction in men
A small RCT in 36 male methadone maintenance patients and 24 healthy controls found that active tDCS groups showed significant craving reduc…
A machine learning algorithm identified opioid addiction with 94.3% accuracy in a small study, and brain stimulation reduced cravings in men…
Intranasal ketamine shows similar pain relief to IV opioids for renal colic in ED meta-analysis
Intranasal ketamine and IV opioids show similar pain relief for kidney stones
A meta-analysis of 4 RCTs including 454 patients with renal colic found no significant differences in pain scores at 5, 15, or 30 minutes be…
Nasal ketamine and IV opioids provide equal pain relief for kidney stones, with no difference in side effects or need for extra medication.
Ketorolac shows early analgesic advantage for post-endodontic pain at 6 hours in meta-analysis
Which pain reliever works best after a root canal? Ketorolac may help most in the first 6 hours
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 7 studies in patients undergoing root canal therapy found ketorolac provided statistically signific…
Ketorolac offers the best pain relief in the first six hours after a root canal, reducing the need for extra rescue doses compared to other …
Study Buddy Intervention Fails to Improve Retention in Rural PWUD Longitudinal Research
Study buddy approach did not improve retention in rural drug use research
A randomized controlled trial of 739 rural people who use drugs (PWUD) in the US found that adding a participant-referred 'study buddy' inte…
Asking rural people who use drugs to recruit a 'study buddy' did not improve their chances of staying in long-term health research compared …
Pain catastrophizing predicts tDCS response patterns in knee osteoarthritis pain
Why does brain stimulation help some knee pain patients but not others?
A secondary analysis of 60 participants with knee osteoarthritis from a randomized trial used machine learning to identify predictors of res…
Knee pain patients who fear their pain the most often fail to benefit from brain stimulation therapy, while those with lower initial pain le…
Anodal tDCS of left motor cortex reduces experimental thermal pain in healthy adults
Can a gentle brain zap turn down the dial on pain?
A triple-blind, randomized crossover trial in 50 healthy adults found anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the left moto…
Gentle brain stimulation can significantly reduce pain in healthy adults, but the opposite type of stimulation actually made the pain feel w…
Mobilization with movement reduces pain and disability in knee osteoarthritis meta-analysis
Mobilization therapy shows promise for reducing knee osteoarthritis pain and disability
A meta-analysis of 2 RCTs in individuals with knee osteoarthritis found mobilization with movement (MWM) significantly reduced pain (Hedges'…
A hands-on therapy called mobilization with movement significantly reduced pain and improved daily function for people with knee osteoarthri…