Browsing by Subject "Pain"
Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Biopsychosocial Factors Associated with Temporomandibular Joint Disorders(2010-11-02T18:11:03Z) Jimenez, Carmen Amanda Riel; Gatchel, Robert Ph.D.The present study represents a continuation of research that has focused on the treatment of acute temporomandibular joint disorders (TMDs) using non-surgical interventions. This study follows previous studies of Wright and colleagues (2004), Gatchel and colleagues (2006), and Stowell and colleagues (2007). Data were collected from 221 patients at community dental practices. Patients were subsequently assigned to one of three treatment groups based on baseline measurements: Low-Risk/ Non-Intervention (LR/NI), High-Risk/ Biobehavioral Treatment (HR/BB), and High-Risk/ Self-Care Treatment (HR/SC). The current study primarily investigated the biopsychosocial differences between temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD) diagnoses. Findings suggested that participants with a combined diagnosis of myofascial pain disorder (MPD) and other disorders reported more pain, psychosocial dysfunction, depression, and somatization compared to participants with no diagnoses. In terms of functional performance, findings indicated that participants with a combination of MPD and other disorders reported more pain while chewing. However, no differences were found in particle size breakdown, broadness, or difference in weight. This study also examined whether high-risk participants reported higher rates of perceived stress. Findings indicated that there were no significant differences between the amounts of perceived stress. Finally, the present study examined the benefits of a biobehavioral treatment compared to a self-care treatment regimen from baseline to one-year follow-up. Preliminary findings suggested that, over time, participants had a reduction in self-reported pain and an increase in psychosocial functioning regardless of their treatment group assignment. Preliminary findings revealed that the number of visits to health care providers for jaw-related pain did not differ among treatment groups. Due to the small number of participants that had reached the one-year time point at the time of analysis, six-month analyses were also conducted. Findings suggested that all participants, regardless of treatment group, reported less pain and less psychosocial dysfunction at the six-month follow-up. Additionally, there was a significant difference found between HR participants and LR/NI participants. However, no significant differences were found between HR/BB and HR/SC treatment. In terms of visits to health care providers for jaw pain, no significant differences were found between HR/BB and HR/SC treatment groups at the six-month time point.Item The corporeality of trauma, memory, and resistance : writing the body in contemporary fiction from Chile and Argentina(2014-05) Tille-Victorica, Nancy Jacqueline; Lindstrom, Naomi, 1950-; Domínguez-Ruvalcaba, Héctor; Heinzelman, Susan Sage; Robbins, Jill; Wettlaufer, AlexandraThis dissertation looks at the representation and impact of gendered violence in the novel Pasos bajo el agua (1986) and in the short stories in Ofrenda de propia piel (2004) by Argentine author and former political prisoner Alicia Kozameh (b. 1953), as well as in Jamás el fuego nunca (2007) and Impuesto a la carne (2010), two novels by Chilean writer Diamela Eltit (b. 1949). By examining the particular expressions of physical and psychological pain in the aforementioned texts, I demonstrate that Kozameh and Eltit write the female body to simultaneously represent a corporeality that, until recently, has rarely been expressed in literature, and reconstruct a body that has been traumatized by state-sponsored violence and by what could be considered economic violence. Both of them denounce violence, torture, disappearances, exile, and indifference to justice as painful events that not only damage the spirits of the victims, but that are also inscribed upon the physical body. I also show how each author addresses the overlapping of individual and collective traumatic memories and how these are felt in the body as well. Finally, I argue that writing the materiality of the lived body, from its vulnerability to its resilience, provides for Kozameh and Eltit valuable insight into the ways in which female bodies are able to resist and reassess the meaning imposed on them by legally-endorsed and non-official systems of oppression. Their work thus has direct viii social relevance that goes beyond feminism's countering of male dominance and women's rights. Yet, I also show that they manifest their feminist commitment by using the voice and body of female subjects to incorporate marginalized Chilean and Argentine bodies into the linguistic realm in order to provide a fuller understanding of female corporeality in Latin America.Item Effects of Low Level Laser Therapy on Orthodontic Pain(2014-04-28) Buchwald, BradleyPurpose: To determine the effectiveness of low level laser therapy applied extra orally on the reduction of orthodontic pain. Materials and Methods: Sixty dental students were voluntarily recruited for this randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, prospective clinical trial. To simulate orthodontic pain, all subjects had four separators placed mesially and distally to either the right or left maxillary and mandibular first molars. Subjects were randomly allocated to one of three different groups: experimental, placebo, and control. Subjects in the experimental group received devices that emitted low level laser therapy while subjects in the placebo group received identical devices that had the output of low level laser therapy dismantled internally. Subjects in each group filled out questionnaires at seven separate time intervals regarding their pain and quality of life changes from the orthodontic separators. Results: When measured at rest, pain increased rapidly over the first 6 hours and then began to decrease after 48 hours. When measured while chewing, pain increased rapidly over the first 24 hours and then began to decrease after 72 hours. There were no significant differences between the experimental, placebo, and control groups for pain both at rest and while chewing at any of the time points. There were also no significant differences between the three groups for changes in eating habits and consumption of analgesic drugs. Conclusion: Extra oral application of low level laser therapy is not an effective way to decrease orthodontic pain.Item Impact of written emotional disclosure of trauma on laboratory induced pain(Texas A&M University, 2008-10-10) Creech, Suzannah KThis study was undertaken to determine whether written emotional disclosure of trauma impacted capsaicin induced pain immediately after writing and at a one-month follow-up, and the extent to which a lifetime history of trauma alters pain under neutral conditions. Three experiments were conducted to answer these questions. In Experiment 1 participants were randomly assigned to write about either a neutral or a trauma topic, and they concurrently completed the capsaicin test. In Experiment 2, the capsaicin test was administered to trauma history and no trauma history participants and pain ratings and secondary hyperalgesia were recorded under neutral conditions. In Experiment 3, participants wrote for three days and completed the radiant heat test before writing on day 1 and after writing on day 3. They also completed the capsaicin test on either day 4 or at a one-month follow-up (day 30). Taken together, these studies had several important results. First, radiant heat withdrawal latencies, ratings of pain intensity and unpleasantness, and area of secondary hyperalgesia were all significantly increased when participants had a history of traumatic experiences. This is evidence that trauma history is sufficient to alter pain regulatory mechanisms, and this may be attributable to the chronic negative affective state induced by trauma history and sensitization of shared circuits involved in both pain and emotion. Furthermore, our findings suggest that written emotional disclosure may lead to long-term changes in pain modulatory pathways that regulate central sensitization, without altering systems that regulate spontaneous pain.Item "Listen to what your jotería is saying” : pain, social harm, and queer Latin@s(2015-05) Glisch-Sánchez, David Luis; Rudrappa, Sharmila, 1966-; Rodríguez, Néstor; Ekland-Olson, Sheldon; Carrington, Ben; Peña, SusanaIn this dissertation, I investigate how transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (TLGBQ) Latin@s have experienced social harm during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, what is the socio-historical context for their experiences, and how have ideologies of Latin@ gender and sexuality shaped these experiences. This is accomplished through the analysis of twenty-six (26) life story interviews where TLGBQ Latin@s provide a testimonio account of their encounters with social harm. Using a social harm framework and centering markers of pain, I develop the theoretical concept algorithms of pain to understand the dynamic and complex experiences TLGBQ Latin@s have with harm rooted in the everyday and institutional realities of racial, gender, sexual, and class inequalities. Algorithms of pain asserts that the totality of social harm TLGBQ Latin@s encounter shapes the meaning they assign to any individual harmful event, informs evaluations of pain and potential harm, and structures daily behavior and attitudes. Algorithms of pain reveal the myriad of ways TLGBQ Latin@s can and do express, communicate, and narrate pain; thus, countering the dominant presumption that pain manifests and is communicated in very narrow terms. This is exemplified in what I have observed as racial utterances, where TLGBQ Latin@s narrate in ways that make use of silence, brief remarks, or stories in passing as ways to index racial social harm, instead of stories thick with detail, description and explicit accounts of pain. Additionally, algorithms of pain establish the centrality of racism, patriarchy, transmisogyny, homophobia, class exploitation, and xenophobia to constructing the full spectrum of emotions that represent pain. Lastly, the dissertation documents through an analysis of governmental mission statements why the state is unable to intervene into the social harm effecting TLGBQ Latin@ lives. The state represents the institutionalization of an algorithm of pain that privileges whiteness, cisgenderness, heterosexuality, wealth, and citizenship, which results in harm management being the overall orientation and function of the state in social harm.Item Meditation as a treatment for primary dysmenorrhea among women with high and low absorption scores(Texas Tech University, 1983-12) Anderson, Daniel ANot availableItem Melissus on pain(2010-12) Heyman, Ivan Walter; Mourelatos, Alexander P. D., 1936-; White, StephenIn the fragments of Melissus we find the earliest metaphysical treatment of pain in the Western philosophical tradition. Famous for his one-entity ontology, Melissus argues that “what is” does not suffer pain or grief (B7.4–6). The scholarly literature on this passage has focused on two questions: (1) What is the argumentative structure of the passage? (2) Who, if anyone, might Melissus be responding to? I will focus on question (1). First, I will provide an account of the argumentative strategy of the passage by viewing it in the wider context of B7 as a whole. I will then note how this strategy, as well as certain features of Melissus’ diction, suggest an initial account of the structure of the passage, according to which it contains three independent arguments. This structure will be confirmed as we delve into the details of the arguments themselves. One of these arguments will prove the most difficult to interpret, and I will suggest two plausible interpretations of this argument, as well as two possible roles for the puzzling claim in 7.4 which invokes the notion of an “equal power” (isēn dunamin). Finally, we will see that one of the two readings of this claim has the accidental virtue of suggesting a response to question (2) above.Item Pre-treatment Level of Opioid Use as a Predictor of Chronic Pain Rehabilitation Outcome(2007-12-17) Kidner, Cindy Lee; Gatchel, Robert J.The current study examines the relationship between pre-treatment opioid use and treatment outcomes among 1,226 chronic pain patients who participated in a functional restoration program. Patients were divided into five categories based on self-reported pre-treatment level of opioid use. Patients received an initial evaluation prior to treatment, which included a physical examination, medical history, disability assessment interview, quantitative functional capacity evaluation, and psychological intake interview. During the initial weeks of treatment, patients consented to and were weaned from all opioid medications. Assessments were repeated at program completion, and a structured telephone interview was conducted at one-year post-treatment to evaluate socioeconomic outcomes. Nearly half of the patients (596/1226) reported opioid use upon admission. Pre-treatment opioid dose, though, was not associated with clinically significant differences in pre-treatment socioeconomic variables, pain report, self-reported disability, or health-related quality of life. At pre-treatment, only patients taking the highest opioid doses showed greater self-reported depressive symptoms. Clinician-rated depressive symptoms did not differ significantly based on opioid dose. Opioid use was associated with pre-treatment health variables, with patients taking opioids being one and a half times more likely to report a prior work-related injury and a pre-treatment surgery. Higher levels of opioid use were associated with more severe psychopathology, as demonstrated in less desirable MMPI profiles. Contrary to expectation, level of pretreatment opioid use did not play a significant role in post-treatment outcomes related to gains in physical functioning, pain report, self-reported disability, or health related quality of life. In general, opioid users showed similar gains relative to non-opioid users from completing functional restoration. However, opioid users showed significantly lower work return and work retention rates, and higher rates of new surgery and healthcare utilization at a one-year follow-up. Pre-treatment opioid dose was also inversely related to program completion rates. Results suggest that compared to nonopioid users, patients who discontinue opioid use show similar post-treatment benefits from functional restoration, but poorer socioeconomic outcomes. Thus, level of pretreatment opioid use could be a useful guide for identifying patients who are at risk, and targeting treatment interventions to improve the likelihood of program completion and positive long-term treatment outcomes.Item Predictors of Success Across Differing Interdiscilinary Pain Programs: Who Benefits from Which Treatment?(2009-09-04) Oslund, Sarah Renee; Robinson, Richard C.This study aimed to examine predictors of completion and success in interdisciplinary treatment for chronic pain and to provide clinicians with relevant information in determining the appropriate treatment intensity for patients. A total of 1,062 patients were examined who participated in one of three different levels of treatment intensity: a 120 hour treatment program (n=699), a 72 hour treatment program (n=61), and a 24 hour treatment program (n=302). Results indicated that higher levels of anxiety and greater number of visits to the emergency room in the twelve months prior to treatment were predictive of premature termination of treatment in the more intensive program. For less intensive programs, number of hours resting per day was predictive of early termination of treatment. Predictors of success were then examined utilizing five definitions of success. No single measure was found to be a significant predictor across all five domains. However, lower levels of health care utilization, higher levels of affective distress, greater perceived interference from pain, and lower levels of perceived control were predictive of successful outcomes. Overall, the findings indicate that individuals with greater dysfunction at treatment entry will benefit more from treatment. When comparing three programs of different intensities, the most intensive program produced a higher proportion of successful outcomes. Pre-treatment variables were explored as a means of identifying relevant clinical variables that could be utilized by clinicians to identify the most appropriate treatment program for patients. Greater number of hours resting and higher levels of pain at pre-treatment were found to be useful variables. Namely, those resting more than seven hours per day or reporting pain levels higher than six out of twelve indicated a need for the most intensive program.Item Presurgical Behavioral Medicine Evaluation for Implantable Devices for Pain Management: Clinical Effectiveness for Predicting Outcomes(2005-08-11) Schocket, Kimberly Gardner; Stowell, Anna WrightThe current study attempts to apply a presurgical psychological screening algorithm to a subset of patients being considered to receive implantable pain management devices, specifically spinal cord stimulators and intrathecal drug delivery systems. The Presurgical Behavioral Medicine Evaluation (PBME) algorithm was designed to evaluate patients prior to spine surgery. The algorithm showed strong outcome predictability in previous studies (Block et al., 2003). A PBME was administered to 60 patients being evaluated for implantable devices at a major pain center that provides interdisciplinary pain management to patients. Patients were classified into one of five prognostic categories including Green, Yellow-I, Yellow-II, Red-I, and Red-II. This study sought to elucidate the characteristics of patients falling into the separate prognostic categories. Analyses revealed that males were more likely than females to fall in the Green and Yellow-I groups and patients receiving disability were more commonly found in the Red and Yellow-II groups. The biopsychosocial profiles of each category were examined using various physical/functional and psychosocial measures. As hypothesized, the Green group, with the lowest mean scores for each measure, yielded the most positive biopsychosocial profile at initial evaluation. The Green group reported low levels of depression and little impairment in physical functioning. The Red group obtained the highest mean scores, indicating decreased biopsychosocial functioning at initial evaluation. More specifically, the Red group experienced more depressive symptomatology and decreased physical functioning at the time of the initial evaluation. Additionally, the Red group had a greater number of medical risk factors and the presence of adverse clinical features at onset, and was more likely to use catastrophizing as a coping strategy. The patients were also compared at follow-up showing improvements on most physical/functional and psychosocial measures. Lastly, regression analyses were conducted to elucidate those factors most predictive of prognostic assignments. Thus, the algorithm was able to correctly classify those patients who were and were not appropriate candidates for surgery by collecting and analyzing data with regard to the overall biopsychosocial functioning of patients.Item When will states talk? Predicting the initiation of conflict management in interstate crises(Texas A&M University, 2006-10-30) Bragg, Belinda LesleyThis research addresses the question of why some crises between states are resolved through negotiated agreements while others result in continued conflict or escalate to war. The model deviates from previous approaches to the study of conflict management in four key ways: 1) management is treated as a conflict strategy rather than an outcome; 2) costs, rather than calculation of the relative benefits of conflict over management, motivate the initiation of conflict management; 3) the conceptualization of costs is broadened to incorporate subjective factors; and 4) issue salience is proposed to determine the threshold at which an actor??????s preference for conflict over management changes. The central question this conceptualization raises, therefore, is what factors influence actors?????? strategy choices during a crisis. The theory proposes that, when it comes to the initiation of conflict management, it is costs that dominate the decision process. Or as Jackman (1993) so succinctly puts it; ??????for those confronted with a very restricted range of available alternatives extending from horrendous to merely awful, minimizing pain is the same as maximizing utility??????. Both experimental and statistical methodologies are used to test the hypotheses derived from the theory. Original experimental data were collected from experiments run on undergraduate students at Texas A&M University. For the statistical analysis a data set of interstate crises and negotiation behavior was compiled using data from the SHERFACS and International Crisis Behavior data sets and data collected specifically for this research. This multi-method approach was chosen because of the nature of the questions being examined and in order to minimize the limitations of the individual methodologies. The experimental tests demonstrate that the expectations of the model are supported in the controlled environment of the experiment. The results from the empirical analysis were, within the restrictions of the data, consistent with both theoretical expectations and the experimental results.