Tuesday, March 15, 2011

On chronic pain and body schema

Pain: The Science and Culture of Why We Hurt

by Marni Jackson

"Why do we still distinguish between mental pain and physical pain," she asks, "when pain is always an emotional experience? Why is pain so poorly understood, especially in a century of self-scrutiny? Hasn't anyone noticed the embarrassing fact that science is about to clone a human being but still can't cure the pain of a bad back?"

A new take on the Gate Control Theory, or, The benefits of rubbing your boo-boos

from the blog of Dave Walton, physiotherapist and Assistant Professor with the School of Physical Therapy at University of Western Ontario.

" ... (I)t is conceivable that the brain's sentry body-self neuromatrix maintains that heightened state of arousal and sensitivity in it's efforts to obtain knowledge about the state of the painful part. This might also be the mechanism behind Peter O'Sullivan's observations that some people with chronic low back pain exhibit behaviours that result in further pain (ie. it's painful to extend the lumbar spine, but some people habitually adopt this posture despite the pain). In that case, this theory would suggest that any stimuli coming from the area, even if unpleasant, can offer at least some form of relief to a neuromatrix seeking information, especially in those conditions that you can't see. Not saying this is good, just saying it makes sense in light of my pseudo-theory. Note that this theory would also support the notion that manual therapies probably have much of their effect through drawing attention to, and providing neurophysiological stimulus from, painful parts of the body. The focus on identifying very specific movement impairments (ie. restricted superior glides of the facet) becomes less of a priority than does identifying the amount of stimulus that can be applied to a body in pain that provides adequate stimuli without being perceived as threatening to the sensitized 'pain' system."

I can't find it! Distorted body image and tactile dysfunction in patients with chronic back pain

By G. Lorimer Moseley

ABSTRACT: The conscious sense of our body, or body image, is often taken for granted, but it is disrupted in many clinical states including complex regional pain syndrome and phantom limb pain. Is the same true for chronic back pain? Body image was assessed, via participant drawings, in six patients with chronic back pain and ten healthy controls. Tactile threshold and two-point discrimination threshold (TPD) were assessed in detail. All the patients, and none of the controls, showed disrupted body image of the back. Five patients were unable to clearly delineate the outline of their trunk and stated that they could not “find it”. TPD was greatly increased in the same zone as the absence or disruption of body image, but was otherwise similar to controls. The disturbance of body image and decrease in tactile acuity coincided with the normal distribution of pain, although there was no allodynia and there was no relationship between resting pain level and TPD. Tactile threshold was unremarkable for patients and controls. These preliminary data indicate that body image is disrupted, and tactile acuity is decreased, in the area of usual pain, in patients with chronic back pain. This finding raises the possibility that training body image or tactile acuity may help patients in chronic spinal pain, as it has been shown to do in patients with complex regional pain syndrome or phantom limb pain.


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