November 2012 References  Devin J. Starlanyl   for http://www.sover.net/~devstar

Arendt-Nielsen L, Fernández-de-Las-PeZas C, Graven-Nielsen T. 2011.  Basic aspects of musculoskeletal pain: from acute to chronic pain. J Man Manip Ther. 19(4):186-193. “The transition from acute to chronic musculoskeletal pain is not well understood. To understand this transition, it is important to know how peripheral and central sensitization are manifested and how they can be assessed. A variety of human pain biomarkers have been developed to quantify localized and widespread musculoskeletal pain. In addition, human surrogate models may be used to induce sensitization in otherwise healthy volunteers. Pain can arise from different musculoskeletal structures (e.g. muscles, joints, ligaments, or tendons), and differentiating the origin of pain from those different structures is a challenge. Tissue specific pain biomarkers can be used to tease these different aspects. Chronic musculoskeletal pain patients in general show signs of local/central sensitization and spread of pain to degrees which correlate to pain intensity and duration. From a management perspective, it is therefore highly important to reduce pain intensity and try to minimize the duration of pain.”

Borsook D, Kussman BD, George E et al. 2012. Surgically Induced Neuropathic Pain: Understanding the Perioperative Process. Ann Surg. [Oct 10 Epub ahead of print]. 

“Nerve damage takes place during surgery. As a consequence, significant numbers (10%-40%) of patients experience chronic neuropathic pain termed surgically induced neuropathic pain (SNPP). The initiating surgery and nerve damage set off a cascade of events that includes both pain and an inflammatory response, resulting in "peripheral and central sensitization," with the latter resulting from repeated barrages of neural activity from nociceptors. In affected patients, these initial events produce chemical, structural, and functional changes in the peripheral and central nervous systems (CNS). The maladaptive changes in damaged nerves lead to peripheral manifestations of the neuropathic state-allodynia, sensory loss, shooting pains, etc, that can manifest long after the effects of the surgical injury have resolved. The CNS manifestations that occur are termed "centralization of pain" and affect sensory, emotional, and other (e.g., cognitive) systems as well as contributing to some of the manifestations of the chronic pain syndrome (e.g., depression). Currently there are no objective measures of nociception and pain in the perioperative period. As such, intermittent or continuous pain may take place during and after surgery. New technologies including direct measures of specific brain function of nociception and new insights into preoperative evaluation of patients including genetic predisposition, appear to provide initial opportunities for decreasing the burden of SNPP, until treatments with high efficacy and low adverse effects that either prevent or treat pain are discovered.”

Celik D, Kaya Mutlu E. 2012. The relationship between latent trigger points and depression levels in healthy subjects. Clin Rheumatol 31(6):907-911. This study from Turkey found a “…close relationship between the presence of LTrPs (latent trigger points) and depression levels I healthy people.” 

Comeche Moreno MI, Ortega Pardo J, Rodríguez Munoz MF et al. 2012. [Structure and adequacy of the Beck Depression Inventory in patients with fibromyalgia.]  Psicothema. 24(4):668-673. [Spanish] “The Beck Depression inventory is a widely used instrument for the measurement of depression in chronic pain....These results indicate that there are differences between the depressive manifestations of this type of patients and those with chronic pain. In addition, the peculiar structure of the BDI in this sample of patients seems to indicate an overlap between some depressive symptoms and the symptoms of fibromyalgia, which could lead to an overestimation of the occurrence of depression when measured with the BDI, a bias that should be assessed and modified.”

Courtney CA, Clark JD, Duncombe AM et al. 2011.  Clinical presentation and manual therapy for lower quadrant musculoskeletal conditions. J Man Manip Ther. 19(4):212-222. “Chronic lower quadrant injuries constitute a significant percentage of the musculoskeletal cases seen by clinicians. While impairments may vary, pain is often the factor that compels the patient to seek medical attention. Traumatic injury from sport is one cause of progressive chronic joint pain, particularly in the lower quarter. Recent studies have demonstrated the presence of peripheral and central sensitization mechanisms in different lower quadrant pain syndromes, such as lumbar spine related leg pain, osteoarthritis of the knee, and following acute injuries such as lateral ankle sprain and anterior cruciate ligament rupture. Proper management of lower quarter conditions should include assessment of balance and gait as increasing pain and chronicity may lead to altered gait patterns and falls. In addition, quantitative sensory testing may provide insight into pain mechanisms which affect management and prognosis of musculoskeletal conditions. Studies have demonstrated analgesic effects and modulation of spinal excitability with use of manual therapy techniques, with clinical outcomes of improved gait and functional ability. This paper will discuss the evidence which supports the use of manual therapy for lower quarter musculoskeletal dysfunction.”

Courtney CA, O'Hearn MA, Hornby TG. 2012. Neuromuscular Function in Painful Knee Osteoarthritis. Curr Pain Headache Rep. [Sep 29 Epub ahead of print]. “Pain is a major cause of impaired mobility in elderly patients with chronic osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Central sensitization and impaired nociceptive inhibitory mechanisms have both been identified as contributing factors to heightened pain in this patient population. While central sensitization has been shown to produce enhanced pain responses and spread of pain to adjacent and remote body regions, conditioned pain modulation has also been shown to be adversely affected, and may be characteristic of those patients with chronic pain. Alterations of quantitative sensory testing measures have been demonstrated in patients with knee OA, and may serve as a clinical means of staging chronic musculoskeletal pain, including assessment of hyperalgesia and hypoesthesia. In addition, pain and altered somatosensation commonly associated with OA may be correlated with functional deficits.”

 

da Silva SG, Sarni RO, de Souza FI et al. 2012.   Assessment of nutritional status and eating disorders in female adolescents with fibromyalgia. J Adolesc Health. 51(5):524-527. CONCLUSIONS: This study verified an absence of nutritional and eating disorders in adolescents recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia that, in addition to the correlation between adiposity indexes and KEDS total score, emphasizes the importance of nutritional and body composition assessment, allowing an early and adequate nutritional intervention.

Gemignani F, Vitetta F, Brindani F et al. 2012. Painful polyneuropathy associated with restless legs syndrome. Clinical features and sensory profile. Sleep Med. [Oct 3 Epub ahead of print]. “RLS is frequently associated with painful polyneuropathy, in keeping with the hypothesis that its occurrence is favored by small fiber involvement. It represents a heterogeneous entity, differentiated in chronic and remitting-intermittent subtypes, possibly conditioned by indolent or aggressive neuropathy course and phenomena of central sensitization.”

 

Isabel de-la-Llave-Rincón A, Puentedura EJ, Fernández-de-Las-PeZas C. 2011. Clinical presentation and manual therapy for upper quadrant musculoskeletal conditions.

J Man Manip Ther. 19(4):201-211. We’ve learned much recently about the causes of upper quadrant pain. A treatment based classification of these causes has been developed. Patients grouped and treated according to this classification have better outcomes. The cervical and thoracic spine is often involved.  “Spinal manipulation has been found to be effective for patients with elbow pain, neck pain, or cervicobrachial pain. Additionally, it is known that spinal manipulative therapy exerts neurophysiological effects that can activate pain modulation mechanisms. This paper exposes some manual therapies for upper quadrant pain syndromes, based on a nociceptive pain rationale for modulating central nervous system including trigger point therapy, dry needling, mobilization or manipulation, and cognitive pain approaches.”

Kaufman MB, Choy M. 2012. Pregabalin and simvastatin: first report of a case of rhabdomyolysis. P T. 37(10):579-595. This study concerns a 70-year-old man who arrived at the emergency department with multiple conditions. He was taking multiple medications. His rhabdomyolysis was found to be caused by simvastatin and perhaps also pregabalin. “It is not well known that pregabalin can cause rhabdomyolysis, and there is only one published report on pregabalin-induced hepatotoxicity. When different therapies are combined, the risk of rhabdomyolysis may be increased. The cause of rhabdomyolysis in our patient might be related to decreased renal elimination of both pregabalin and simvastatin (e.g., renal tubular reabsorption). It is important to be aware of this potentially serious and possibly life-threatening reaction especially when medication doses are increased or combined with other agents with similar safety issues.”

Klaver-Krol EG, Rasker JJ, Henriquez NR. 2012. Muscle fiber velocity and electromyographic signs of fatigue in fibromyalgia. Muscle Nerve. 46(5):738-745. “We investigated possible differences in surface electromyography (sEMG) in clinically unaffected muscle between patients with FM and controls....sEMG was performed on the biceps brachii muscle of 13 women with FM and 14 matched healthy controls during prolonged dynamic exercises, unloaded, and loaded up to 20% of maximum voluntary contraction. The sEMG parameters were: muscle fiber conduction velocity (CV); skewness of motor unit potential (peak) velocities; peak frequency (PF) (number of peaks per second); and average rectified voltage (ARV). Results: There was significantly higher CV in the FM group. Although the FM group performed the tests equally well, their electromyographic fatigue was significantly less expressed compared with controls (in CV, PF, and ARV)....In the patients with FM, we clearly showed functional abnormalities of the muscle membrane, which led to high conduction velocity and resistance to fatigue in electromyography. [It would be very interesting to check these patients for co-existing myofascial trigger points in those muscles. The unsuspected TrPs could be the actual cause of the symptoms noted. DJS]

Lakhan SE, Avramut M, Tepper SJ. 2012. Structural and Functional Neuroimaging in Migraine: Insights from 3 Decades of Research. Headache. [Oct 23 Epub ahead of print]. “Modern imaging methods provide unprecedented insights into brain structure, perfusion, metabolism, and neurochemistry, both during and between migraine attacks. Neuroimaging investigations conducted in recent decades bring us closer to uncovering migraine as a multifaceted, primarily central nervous system disorder. Three main categories of structural and functional brain changes are described in this review, corresponding to the migrainous aura, ictal headache, and interictal states. These changes greatly advance our understanding of multiple pathophysiologic underpinnings of migraine, from central "migraine generating" loci, to cortical spreading depression, intimate mechanisms underlying activation of neuronal pain pathways in vulnerable patients, central sensitization, and chronification. Structural imaging begins to explain the complex connections between migraine and cerebral vascular events, white matter lesions, grey matter density alterations, iron deposition, and microstructural brain damage. Selected structural and functional alterations of brain structures, as identified with imaging methods, may represent the foundation of new diagnostic strategies and serve as markers of therapeutic efficacy.”

Legrain V, Mancini F, Sambo CF et al. 2012. Cognitive aspects of nociception and pain. Bridging neurophysiology with cognitive psychology. Neurophysiol Clin. 42(5):325-336. “The event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by nociceptive stimuli are largely influenced by vigilance, emotion, alertness, and attention. Studies that specifically investigated the effects of cognition on nociceptive ERPs support the idea that most of these ERP components can be regarded as the neurophysiological indexes of the processes underlying detection and orientation of attention toward the eliciting stimulus. Such detection is determined both by the salience of the stimulus that makes it pop out from the environmental context (bottom-up capture of attention) and by its relevance according to the subject's goals and motivation (top-down attentional control). The fact that nociceptive ERPs are largely influenced by information from other sensory modalities such as vision and proprioception, as well as from motor preparation, suggests that these ERPs reflect a cortical system involved in the detection of potentially meaningful stimuli for the body, with the purpose to respond adequately to potential threats. In such a theoretical framework, pain is seen as an epiphenomenon of warning processes, encoded in multimodal and multiframe representations of the body, well suited to guide defensive actions. The findings here reviewed highlight that the ERPs elicited by selective activation of nociceptors may reflect an attentional gain apt to bridge a coherent perception of salient sensory events with action selection processes.”

Lienbacher K, Horn AK. 2012. Palisade endings and proprioception in extraocular muscles: a comparison with skeletal muscles. Biol Cybern. [Oct 10 Epub ahead of print].

“This article describes current views on motor and sensory control of extraocular muscles (EOMs) based on anatomical data. The special morphology of EOMs, including their motor innervation, is described in comparison to classical skeletal limb and trunk muscles. The presence of proprioceptive organs is reviewed with emphasis on the palisade endings (PEs), which are unique to EOMs, but the function of which is still debated. In consideration of the current new anatomical data about the location of cell bodies of PEs, a hypothesis on the function of PEs in EOMs and the multiply innervated muscle fibres they are attached to is put forward.” [Imagine the effects of TrPs in these muscles. DJS]

Melikoglu M, Melikoglu MA. 2012. The prevalence of fibromyalgia in patients with Behçet's disease and its relation with disease activity. Rheumatol Int. [Sep 28 Epub ahead of print]. “FM is a common and important clinical problem that may represent an additional factor that worsens pain and physical limitations in patients with BD. The higher prevalence of FM in patients with BD seems to be affected by BD itself, rather than its severity.” [This study makes an important point. Many conditions have interactive diagnoses, and we need to look for them. DJS]

Neyal M, Yimenicioglu F, Aydeniz A et al. 2012. Plasma nitrite levels, total antioxidant status, total oxidant status, and oxidative stress index in patients with tension-type headache and fibromyalgia. Clin Neurol Neurosurg. [Oct 11 Epub ahead of print].

“Tension-type headache (TTH) and fibromyalgia syndrome (FM) are worldwide seen chronic pain syndromes of unknown etiology. Despite the growing body of data on pathophysiology and generation mechanisms of pain, our knowledge on pain....These results (from Turkey) indicated that FM and TTH patients revealed higher oxidative stress index and lower total nitrite levels than healthy controls. We conclude that oxidative stress may have a role in the pathophysiological mechanisms of TTH and FM, although whether it is the cause or the consequence is not clear.”

Ohta H, Oka H, Usui C et al. 2012. A randomized, double-blind, multicenter, placebo-controlled phase III trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pregabalin in Japanese patients with fibromyalgia. Arthritis Res Ther. 14(5):R217. “This trial demonstrated that pregabalin, at doses of up to 450 mg/day, was effective for the symptomatic relief of pain in Japanese patients with fibromyalgia. Pregabalin also improved measures of sleep and functioning and was well tolerated. These data indicate that pregabalin is an effective treatment option for the relief of pain and sleep problems in Japanese patients with fibromyalgia.” 

Orlandi AC, Ventura C, Gallinaro AL et al. 2012. Improvement in pain, fatigue, and subjective sleep quality through sleep hygiene tips in patients with fibromyalgia. Rev Bras Reumatol. 52(5):672-678. “The sleep hygiene instructions allowed changing the patients' behavior, which resulted in pain and fatigue improvement, increased subjective quality of sleep, in addition to facilitating falling asleep after waking up in the middle of the night.”

Perrot S, Choy E, Petersel D et al. 2012. Survey of physician experiences and perceptions about the diagnosis and treatment of fibromyalgia. BMC Health Serv Res. 12(1):356. “Fibromyalgia (FM) is a condition characterized by widespread pain and is estimated to affect 0.5-5% of the general population. Historically, it has been classified as a rheumatologic disorder, but patients consult physicians from a variety of specialties in seeking diagnosis and ultimately treatment. Patients report considerable delay in receiving a diagnosis after initial presentation, suggesting diagnosis and management of FM might be a challenge to physicians....A questionnaire survey of 1622 physicians in six European countries, Mexico and South Korea was conducted. Specialties surveyed included primary care physicians (PCPs; n=809) and equal numbers of rheumatologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and pain specialists. The sample included experienced doctors, with an expected clinical caseload for their specialty. Most (>80%) had seen a patient with FM in the last 2 years. Overall, 53% of physicians reported difficulty with diagnosing FM, 54% reported their training in FM was inadequate, and 32% considered themselves not knowledgeable about FM. Awareness of American College of Rheumatology classification criteria ranged from 32% for psychiatrists to 83% for rheumatologists. Sixty-four percent agreed patients found it difficult to communicate FM symptoms, and 79% said they needed to spend more time to identify FM. Thirty-eight percent were not confident in recognizing the symptoms of FM, and 48% were not confident in differentiating FM from conditions with similar symptoms. Thirty-seven percent were not confident developing an FM treatment plan, and 37% were not confident managing FM patients long-term. In general, rheumatologists reported least difficulties/greatest confidence, and PCPs and psychiatrists reported greatest difficulties/least confidence....Diagnosis and managing FM is challenging for physicians, especially PCPs and psychiatrists, but other specialties, including rheumatologists, also express difficulties. Improved training in FM and initiatives to improve patient-doctor communication are needed and may help the management of this condition. [This free article is available on the Internet, and confirms what many patients know all too well. DJS]

Pincus T, Castrejón I, Bergman MJ et al. 2012. Treat-to-target: not as simple as it appears. Clin Exp Rheumatol. [Oct 16 Epub ahead of print]. “Treat-to-target as a strategy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is now widely advocated based on strong evidence. Nonetheless, implementation of treat-to-target raises caveats, as is the case with all clinical care strategies. The target of remission or even low disease activity does not apply to all individual patients, some of whom are affected by concomitant fibromyalgia, other comorbidities, joint damage, and/or who simply prefer to maintain current status and avoid risks of more aggressive therapies. No single universal 'target' measure or index exists for all individual RA patients. An emphasis in most studies on radiographic progression, rather than physical function or mortality, as the most important outcome to document the value of treat-to-target may be inappropriate. Many reports imply that the only limitation to treating all RA patients with biological agents involves costs, ignoring effective results in most patients with methotrexate and other disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and adverse events associated with biological agents. Indeed, the best outcomes in reported RA clinical trials result from tight control with DMARDs, rather than from biological agents, as does better overall status of RA patients at this time compared to previous decades. Pharmacoeconomic reports may ignore that RA patients are older, less educated, and have more comorbidities than the general population, as well as critical differences in patient status according to the gross domestic product of different countries. While treating to a target of remission or low disease activity, including with biological agents, is appropriate for many patients, awareness of these concerns could improve implementation of treat-to-target for optimal care of all RA patients.” [Many patients have RA, FM and CMP and other conditions as well. Improvement of one condition often improves quality of life, although it may not affect the radiological images. Clinicians must learn to treat the patients and not the diagnostic images. DJS]

Proske U, Gandevia SC. 2012. The proprioceptive senses: their roles in signaling body shape, body position and movement, and muscle force. Physiol Rev. 92(4):1651-1697.     Proprioceptive senses “...include the senses of position and movement of our limbs and trunk, the sense of effort, the sense of force, and the sense of heaviness. Receptors involved in proprioception are located in skin, muscles, and joints. Information about limb position and movement is not generated by individual receptors, but by populations of afferents. Afferent signals generated during a movement are processed to code for endpoint position of a limb. The afferent input is referred to a central body map to determine the location of the limbs in space. Experimental phantom limbs, produced by blocking peripheral nerves, have shown that motor areas in the brain are able to generate conscious sensations of limb displacement and movement in the absence of any sensory input. In the normal limb tendon organs and possibly also muscle spindles contribute to the senses of force and heaviness. Exercise can disturb proprioception, and this has implications for musculoskeletal injuries. Proprioceptive senses, particularly of limb position and movement, deteriorate with age and are associated with an increased risk of falls in the elderly. [Trigger points can cause proprioceptive dysfunction, so this information is very important. DJS]

Reisenauer SJ. 2012. A needle in the neck: trigger point injections as headache management in the emergency department. Adv Emerg Nurs J. 34(4):350-356. “A review of recent research suggests that the use of trigger point injections is successful in relieving the acute pain of musculoskeletal headaches. Patients with the chief complaint of headache commonly present to the emergency department (ED) and are often treated with multiple intravenous medications including narcotics....This article will address the problems of intravenous medication therapy and discuss the benefits of trigger point therapy as management for musculoskeletal headaches specifically in the ED. In addition, discussion aims to provide tools for the nurse practitioner to integrate this skill into clinical practice.”

Roach S, Sorenson E, Headley B et al. 2012. The prevalence of myofascial trigger points in the hip in patellofemoral pain patients. Arch Phys Med Rehabil Nov 2 [Epub ahead of print] Patients with pain in the front of the knee have a much greater prevalence of trigger points bilaterally in the gluteus medius and quadratus lumborum muscles.  They also had less hip abduction strength which TrP release therapy was not sufficient to increase. 

Ruiz-Párraga GT, López-Martínez AE, Gómez-Pérez L. 2012. Factor structure and psychometric properties of the resilience scale in a Spanish chronic musculoskeletal pain sample. J Pain. 13(11):1090-1098. “This article presents the first resilience questionnaire (RS-18) for chronic pain patients. The instrument obtained shows good reliability and validity. The results provide health-care professionals and researchers with a measure of resilience in chronic pain patients that excludes items related to functional disability.”

Sari H, Akarirmak U, Uludag M. 2012. Active myofascial trigger points might be more frequent in patients with cervical radiculopathy. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 48(2):237-244. Of 128 female and 116 male patients, some with active trigger points and some without, the patients with active trigger points were more likely to have co-existing cervical radiculopathy.  The authors conclude that cervical root compression would be the initiator or maintainer of an active TrP, and that treating cervical radiculopathy may help co-existing TrPs. They did find that many of the “healthy controls” had latent TrPs in the muscles checked. [It could be that since latent TrPs can cause muscle contraction, weakness and dysfunction without pain, latent TrPs may be the beginning of the process that eventually leads to cervical compression and active TrPsundefinedalthough we don’t know for sure in which order this occurs. DJS]

Shankar H, Cummings C. 2012. Ultrasound Imaging of Embedded Shrapnel Facilitates Diagnosis and Management of Myofascial Pain Syndrome. Pain Pract [Oct 24 Epub ahead of print]. “Trigger points can result from a variety of inciting events including muscle overuse, trauma, mechanical overload, and psychological stress....A veteran was referred to the pain clinic for management of his severe headache following a gunshot wound to the neck with shrapnel embedded in the neck muscles a few years prior to presentation. He had no other comorbid conditions. Physical examination revealed a taut band in the neck. An ultrasound imaging of the neck over the taut band revealed the deformed shrapnel located within the levator scapulae muscle along with an associated trigger point in the same muscle. Ultrasound guided trigger point injection, followed by physical therapy resolved his symptoms.” 

Stecco A, Stecco C, Macchi V et al. 2011. RMI study and clinical correlations of ankle retinacula damage and outcomes of ankle sprain. Surg Radiol Anat. [Feb 9 Epub ahead of print]. Alterations shown by MRI in ankle retinacula from trauma or chronic ankle instability corresponds to proprioceptive damage noted by photography and clinical exam. This indicates that the ankle reticulinum are not passive stabilizers but also involved in proprioceptive function. Deep massage of the ankle retinacula alleviated these symptoms. The authors state that adaptive fibrosis may develop as a consequence of unremitting non-physiological tension in a fascial segment.  The deep friction massage changes the nature of the ground substance, restoring glide. They believe this to be due to changes in the myofascia rather than to bones or ligaments. [Correspondence with the authors revealed that they also have found trigger points in retinacula. DJS]

Suskind AM, Berry SH, Suttorp MJ et al. 2012. Health-related quality of life in patients with interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome and frequently associated comorbidities. Qual Life Res. [Oct 7 Epub ahead of print]. “To estimate the association of chronic non-urologic conditions [i.e., fibromyalgia (FM), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)] with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in patients with interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS).....In patients with IC/BPS, the presence of FM, CFS, and IBS has a significant association with HRQOL, equivalent in impact to the bladder symptoms themselves. These results emphasize the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to treating patients with IC/BPS and other conditions.”

Tampin B, Briffa NK, Slater H. 2012. Self-reported sensory descriptors are associated with quantitative sensory testing parameters in patients with cervical radiculopathy, but not in patients with fibromyalgia. Eur J Pain. [Oct 26 Epub ahead of print]. “The painDETECT questionnaire (PD-Q) has been used as a tool to characterize sensory abnormalities in patients with persistent pain. This study investigated whether the self-reported sensory descriptors of patients with painful cervical radiculopathy (CxRAD) and patients with fibromyalgia (FM), as characterized by responses to verbal sensory descriptors from PD-Q (sensitivity to light touch, cold, heat, slight pressure, feeling of numbness in the main area of pain), were associated with the corresponding sensory parameters as demonstrated by quantitative sensory testing (QST)....Clinicians and researchers should be cautious about relying on PD-Q (as a stand-alone screening tool to determine sensory abnormalities in patients with FM.”

 

Toms J. 2012. [Updated view of fibromyalgia]. Cas Lek Cesk. 151(9):415-419 [Czech].

“Fibromyalgia is a chronic syndrome characterized by dysfunction of pain processing and regulation....The absence of objective diagnostic tests often results in delayed diagnosis and patient fluctuation among a number of specialists with uncertainty and fear of a serious disease. The treatment is based on the individually adjusted and multidisciplinary approach to the patient, combining pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapy.” 

Torma LM, Houck GM, Wagnild GM et al. 2012. Growing Old with Fibromyalgia: Factors That Predict Physical Function. Nurs Res. [Oct 30 Epub ahead of print].

“Resilience, a novel variable in fibromyalgia research, was a unique predictor of physical function. Further research is needed to learn more about the relationships between resilience, fibromyalgia impact, and the aging process.”

Wagner JS, Dibonaventura MD, Chandran AB et al. 2012. The association of sleep difficulties with health-related quality of life among patients with fibromyalgia. BMC Musculoskel Disord. 13(1):199. “Among the FM population, sleep difficulty symptoms were independently associated with clinically-meaningful decrements in mental and physical HRQoL (health-related quality of life). These results suggest that greater emphasis in the treatment of sleep difficulty symptoms among the FM population may be warranted.”

Wang C. 2012. Role of tai chi in the treatment of rheumatologic diseases. Curr Rheumatol Rep. 14(6):598-603. “Rheumatologic diseases (e.g., fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis) consist of a complex interplay between biologic and psychological aspects, resulting in therapeutically challenging chronic conditions to control. Encouraging evidence suggests that Tai Chi, a multi-component Chinese mind-body exercise, has multiple benefits for patients with a variety of chronic disorders, particularly those with musculoskeletal conditions. Thus, Tai Chi may modulate complex factors and improve health outcomes in patients with chronic rheumatologic conditions. As a form of physical exercise, Tai Chi enhances cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength, balance, and physical function. It also appears to be associated with reduced stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as improved quality of life. Thus, Tai Chi can be safely recommended to patients with fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis as a complementary and alternative medical approach to improve patient well-being.”

Warren JW, Clauw DJ. 2012. Functional Somatic Syndromes: Sensitivities and Specificities of Self-Reports of Physician Diagnosis. Psychosom Med. [Oct 15 Epub ahead of print]. “Self-report of physician diagnosis did not identify most of the three most venerable functional somatic syndromes, IBS, FM, and, especially, CFS; nor did it identify substantial minorities of individuals with panic disorder and migraine. Self-report of physician diagnosis was particularly poor in recognizing persons with multiple syndromes. The insensitivity of this diagnostic test has effects on not only prevalence and incidence estimates but also correlates, comorbidities, and case recruitment. To reveal individuals with these syndromes, singly or together, queries of symptoms, not diagnoses, are necessary.”

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