KATE BENSON
Oct 19, 2009

AUSTRALIA could become the first country to recognise chronic pain as a disease in its own right, giving sufferers greater credibility and access to more integrated services.

Chronic pain, which affects one in five…

Oct 14, 2009
Bill H. McCarberg, MD
Question

The primary care physician is the point of service entry into our medical delivery system. This doctor is the one initially seen for almost every type of disorder. Why is…

Medical News Today
Oct 27, 2009

A new Pain Medicine Position Paper published by leaders of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM), reveals businesses lose $61 billion annually due to ineffective pain care and the lack of optimal…

Oct 29, 2009
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer

Heightened efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration to crack down on narcotics abuse are producing a troubling side effect by denying some hospice and elderly patients needed pain…

The New York Times
Nov 5, 2009
By John Tierney

Chronic pain affects more than 70 million Americans, which makes it more widespread than heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined. It costs the economy more than $100 billion…

Nov 4, 2009
Author Unknown
medicalnewstoday.com

Science now offers us ever more advanced ways to understand and control pain. But with those new treatments come new questions about the use (and misuse) of state-of-the-art technology and how far…

Dec 25, 2009
By: Karen McCowan
The Register-Guard
An Oregon native is honored for her work to help others in pain

Most people would not use the word “gift” to describe a diagnosis of not one but…

Reason Hit & Run
By: Jacob Sullum
Dec 9, 2009

This week the Institute for Justice and the Reason Foundation (which publishes Reason magazine and Reason Online) filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Siobhan Reynolds, the pain…

Feb 25, 2010
By: John Stossel
Fox Business Network

In this week’s show “Hands Off My Meds” (re-airing tonight at 10pm ET, Saturday at 7pm ET, and Sunday at 11pm ET), I ask: Why does…

Results from the first prospective study of minimally invasive facet arthrodesis and long-term data on spinal cord stimulation demonstrate the viability of these options to achieve pain relief in patients with various back pain conditions. The studies were presented at the American Academy of Pain Medicine's 26th Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX...

A recent analysis of two pivotal clinical trials in patients with acute low back pain (ALBP) who were treated with SOMA® (carisoprodol) 250 mg showed significantly improved functionality and reduced disability after three days of treatment, as measured by the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ)...

Australian general practitioners often treat patients with low back pain in a manner that does not appear to match the care endorsed by international clinical guidelines, according to a report in the February 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals...

Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia significantly improved sleep for patients with chronic neck or back pain and also reduced the extent to which pain interfered with their daily functioning, according to a study by University of Rochester Medical Center researchers...

The results of a study of more than 4500 patients from six Italian EVEREST (European Vertebroplasty Research Team) Centers (Dr. G.C. Anselmetti-Candiolo Torino, Dr. G. Bonaldi-Bergamo, Dr. P. Carpeggiani-Pisa, Dr. S. Masala-Roma, Dr. M...

While lower back pain ranks as a common cause of disability in the United States, determining what causes a person's back pain is often challenging. A new Cochrane review on diagnosing back pain finds that no single diagnostic test is good at discriminating between patients who have a herniated disc and patients who do not, according to lead author Danielle van der Windt...

Approximately 21 million visits were made to physicians' offices due to back problems in 2006. While countless adults experience back pain and stiffness, many suffer from serious spine and back conditions - including injury, herniated discs and the deterioration of the vertebrae...

An article published in this week's issue of The Lancet reports that group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can reduce low-back pain at a low cost to the health-care provider. Furthermore, one year after the start of treatment, the improvement was sustained. Ranked as one of the top three most disabling conditions in the developed World, persistent low-back pain is increasingly common...

Spinal Restoration, Inc. announced that patient enrollment in the company's Phase III study of the Biostat System for the treatment of discogenic chronic low back pain is now underway. The study, which will be conducted at 15 U.S...

Treating non-osteoporotic compression fractures in patients with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, shows that the use of vertebroplasty - a minimally invasive treatment performed by interventional radiologists using imaging guidance that stabilizes collapsed vertebrae with the injection of medical-grade bone cement into the spine - results in a reduction of pain, medication usa...

Most people have experienced back pain - and many hope that massage will relieve it. But not all forms of massage have been scientifically proven to help against low back pain. That is what the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) pointed out in information published on http://informedhealthonline.org/...

Loss of height in postmenopausal women may indicate a vertebral fracture, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Height loss is common as people age and is associated with back pain. Causes include changes in the curvature of the spine, narrowing of intervertebral discs and vertebral fractures. Two-thirds of adults have back pain at any time...

ArthroCare Corp...

DURECT Corporation (Nasdaq: DRRX) announced that its licensee, King Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: KG), has begun a Phase IIb clinical trial to evaluate ELADUR™ (TRANSDUR™-Bupivacaine) for the treatment of chronic low back pain. ELADUR is an investigational transdermal drug patch intended to deliver bupivacaine for up to 3 days from a single application...

The proportion of older middle-aged Americans who report disabilities related to mobility increased significantly from 1997 to 2007, in contrast to the disability decline that has been found among Americans ages 65 and over, according to a new study by the RAND Corporation and the University of Michigan...

NPR: "Too many complex back surgeries are being done and people are suffering as a result, according to a study in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The general tendency noted in the study - that many patients and doctors think more medical care is always better - has implications for the new health overhaul law...