Lower back pain? Self-administered acupressure could help
August 21, 2019
Science Daily/Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan
A recent study finds that acupressure, a traditional Chinese medicine technique, can improve chronic pain symptoms in the lower back.
"Acupressure is similar to acupuncture, but instead of needles, pressure is applied with a finger, thumb or device to specific points on the body," says Susan Murphy, ScD, OTR, an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Michigan Medicine and lead author of the study.
Murphy says that while acupressure has been previously studied -- and found to be beneficial -- in people with cancer-related or osteoarthritis pain, there are few studies that have examined acupressure in people with back pain.
In the study, published in Pain Medicine, the research team randomly assigned 67 participants with chronic low back pain into three groups: relaxing acupressure, stimulating acupressure or usual care.
"Relaxing acupressure is thought to be effective in reducing insomnia, while stimulating acupressure is thought to be effective in fatigue reduction," Murphy says.
Participants in the acupressure groups were trained to administer acupressure on certain points of the body, and spent between 27 and 30 minutes daily, over the course of six weeks, performing the technique.
Participants in the usual care group were asked to continue whatever treatments they were currently receiving from their care providers to manage their back pain and fatigue.
"Compared to the usual care group, we found that people who performed stimulating acupressure experienced pain and fatigue improvement and those that performed relaxing acupressure felt their pain had improved after six weeks," Murphy says.
"We found no differences among the groups in terms of sleep quality or disability after the six weeks."
Potential treatment option
Murphy notes that chronic pain is difficult to manage and people with the condition tend to have additional symptoms such as fatigue, sleep disturbance and depression.
"Better treatments are needed for chronic pain," Murphy says. "Most treatments offered are medications, which have side effects, and in some cases, may increase the risk of abuse and addiction."
She says this study highlights the benefits of a non-pharmacological treatment option that patients could perform easily on their own and see positive results.
"Although larger studies are needed, acupressure may be a useful pain management strategy given that it is low risk, low cost and easy to administer," Murphy says.
"We also recommend additional studies into the different types of acupressure and how they could more specifically be targeted to patients based on their symptoms."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190821163805.htm
Frequency of alpha brain waves could be used to assess a person’s predisposition to pain
March 28, 2018
Science Daily/University of Birmingham
The frequency of alpha brain waves can be used as a measure of an individual’s vulnerability to developing and experiencing pain, researchers have discovered.
The personal experience of pain is highly variable among individuals, even in instances where the underlying injury is assessed to be identical.
Previous research has found some genetic factors influence pain susceptibility, but methods to accurately predict pain level consequent to medical intervention such as chemotherapy or surgery are lacking.
The objective of this study was to see if, from the resting brain activity of a healthy individual, it was possible to predict how much pain they would report once prolonged pain had been induced.
The researchers induced the pain using a capsaicin paste -- an ingredient found in hot chili peppers -- to study participants' left forearm and then heated it. Topical capsaicin exposure induces 'robust thermal hyperalgesia' -- a common symptom in chronic pain. All 21 participants in the study were induced in a state of prolonged pain for around an hour.
Using an electroencephalogram (EEG) -- a non-invasive test used to find problems related to the electrical activity of the brain -- the researchers found that across all 21 study participants, those who had a slower frequency of alpha brain waves recorded before the pain, reported being in much more pain than those who had a fast frequency of alpha brain waves.
The researchers also recorded the activity of alpha brain waves during the experience of pain, and if alpha frequency increased (relative to the no-pain condition) the individuals reported to be in less pain than when alpha pain decreased.
Co-senior author Dr Ali Mazaheri, of the University of Birmingham's Center for Human Brain Health, said: "Here we observe that an individual's alpha frequency can be used as a measure of an individual's predisposition to developing pain.
"This has a direct relevance to understanding what makes an individual prone to chronic pain after a medical intervention, such as surgery or chemotherapy.
"Potentially this means we could be able to identify which individuals are more likely to develop pain as a result of a medical procedure and take steps early on in formulating treatment strategies in patients likely to be predisposed to developing chronic pain."
Dr David Seminowicz and Andrew Furman, of the University of Maryland in the US, were also authors of the report.
Andrew Furman said: "Alpha frequency has been found to be slower in individuals who have experienced chronic pain. So the fact we observed that the slowing down of alpha activity as a result of pain correlated with the intensity of an individual's pain report was not that unexpected.
"What was very surprising though, was that prior to the pain -- that is pain-free alpha frequency -- could predict how much pain individuals would experience.
"This would suggest that it could be that the slowing of alpha activity in the chronic pain patients, isn't because of the pain, but rather these individuals had slow alpha frequency to begin with, and as such were more prone or vulnerable to developing pain."
The research, published in Neuroimage, was also carried out in collaboration with the Maryland Exercise and Robotics Center of Excellence in the US.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180328092417.htm
Brief Training in Meditation May Help Manage Pain
November 10, 2009
Science Daily/University of North Carolina at Charlotte
An experimental study examining the perception of pain and the effects of various mental training techniques has found that a relatively short and simple meditation method can have a significant positive effect on pain management.
Though pain research during the past decade has shown that extensive meditation training can have a positive effect in reducing a person's awareness and sensitivity to pain, the effort, time commitment, and financial obligations required has made the treatment not practical for many patients. Now, a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte shows that a single hour of training spread out over a three day period can produce the same kind of analgesic effect.
"This study is the first study to demonstrate the efficacy of such a brief intervention on the perception of pain," noted Fadel Zeidan, a doctoral candidate in psychology at UNC Charlotte and the paper's lead author. "Not only did the meditation subjects feel less pain than the control group while meditating but they also experienced less pain sensitivity while not meditating."
Over the course of three experiments employing harmless electrical shocks administered in gradual increments, the researchers measured the effect of brief sessions of mindfulness meditation training on pain awareness measuring responses that were carefully calibrated to insure reporting accuracy. Subjects who received the meditation training were compared to controls and to groups using relaxation and distraction techniques. The researchers measured changes in the subjects' rating of pain at "low" and "high" levels during the different activities, and also changes in their general sensitivity to pain through the process of calibrating responses before the activities.
Zeidan stresses that the effect the researchers measured in the meditation subjects was a lessening of pain but not a lessening of sensation. The calibration results showed little change in the meditation subjects' sensitivity to the sensation of electricity, but a significant change in what level of shock was perceived to be painful.
"The short course of meditation was very effective on pain perception," Zeidan said. "We got a very high effect size for the periods when they were meditating.
"In fact, it was kind of freaky for me. I was ramping at 400-500 milliamps and their arms would be jolting back and forth because the current was stimulating a motor nerve. Yet they would still be asking, 'A 2?' ('2' being the level of electrical shock that designates low pain) It was really surprising," he said.
Zeidan suspects that the mindfulness training lessens the awareness of and sensitivity to pain because it trains subjects' brains to pay attention to sensations at the present moment rather than anticipating future pain or dwelling on the emotions caused by pain, and thus reduces anxiety.
"The mindfulness training taught them that distractions, feelings, emotions are momentary, don't require a label or judgment because the moment is already over," Zeidan noted. "With the meditation training they would acknowledge the pain, they realize what it is, but just let it go. They learn to bring their attention back to the present."
Though the results are in line with past findings regarding mindfulness practitioners, Zeidan says that the findings are important because they show that meditation is much easier to use for pain management than it was previously believed to be because a very short, simple course of training is all that is required in order to achieve a significant effect. Even self-administered training might be effective, according to Zeidan.
"What's neat here is that this is the briefest known way to promote a meditation state and yet it has an effect in pain management. People who want to make use of the technique might not need a meditation facilitator -- they might be able to get the necessary training off the internet, " Zeidan said. "All you have to do is use your mind, change the way you look at the perception of pain and that, ultimately, might help alleviate the feeling of that pain."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110065909.htm