Chronic neuropathic pain of spinal cord injury: What is the effectiveness of psychocomportemental management?

Evidence-based position paper on Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (PRM) professional practice for persons with spinal cord injury. The European PRM position (UEMS PRM Section)

INTRODUCTION

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition and a challenge for every health system and every society. This EBPP represents the official position of the European Union through the UEMS PRM Section and designates the professional role of PRM physicians for people with SCI. The aim of the paper was to improve Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (PRM) physicians' professional practice for persons with SCI in order to improve their functionality, social and community reintegration, and to overcome activity limitations and/or participation restrictions.

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION

A systematic review of the literature and a consensus procedure by means of a Delphi process have been performed involving the delegates of all European countries represented in the UEMS PRM Section.

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS

The systematic literature review is reported together with thirty-eight recommendations resulting from the Delphi procedure.

CONCLUSIONS

The professional role of PRM physicians who have expertise in the rehabilitation of SCI is to run rehabilitation programmes in multi-professional teams, working in an interdisciplinary way in a variety of settings to improve the functioning of people with SCI.

Moving towards multiple site outcomes in spinal cord injury pain clinical trials: An issue of clustered observations in trial design and analysis

INTRODUCTION

Pain remains a problem for many with spinal cord injury (SCI), and there is a need for sound, randomized clinical trials examining the efficacy of existing and novel therapeutics. SCI-related pain is complex, as more than one type of pain is often experienced. The purpose of this report is to (i) demonstrate how to design and power calculation of a clinical trial of SCI pain using multiple pain sites per individual; (ii) discuss consequences of failing to adjust for this; and (iii) provide intraclass correlation (ICC) estimates for common pain outcome measures that may be used to power future clinical trials in SCI pain.

METHOD

Using an existing dataset from a past SCI pain clinical trial, the ICC was calculated for common pain outcome measures to illustrate appropriate corrections for powering, analyzing and interpreting results from multiple pain sites per individual. The problem associated with not accounting for multiple pain sites per individual and the effect on the Type I error rate is also shown.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Not accounting for the ICC can lead to (1) incorrect power estimates in the design of a trial, and (2) an inflated Type I error rate with a higher likelihood of misinterpretation of outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

Powering for future SCI pain trials and statistical analysis of trial outcomes may be substantially compromised if methods do not account for the intra-individual associations between pain sites, ultimately affecting study interpretations and evidence-based practice. We present ICC estimates based on SCI pain data for purposes of estimating power for future trials.

Neuropathic pain post spinal cord injury part 1: systematic review of physical and behavioral treatment

BACKGROUND

Neuropathic pain has various physiologic and psychosocial aspects. Hence, there is a growing use of adjunct nonpharmacological therapy with traditional pharmacotherapy to reduce neuropathic pain post spinal cord injury (SCI).

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of published research on nonpharmacological treatment of neuropathic pain after SCI.

METHODS

MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, and PsycINFO databases were searched for articles addressing nonpharmacological treatment of pain post SCI. Articles were restricted to the English language. Article selection was conducted by 2 independent reviewers with the following inclusion criteria: the subjects participated in a treatment or intervention for neuropathic pain; at least 50% of the subjects had an SCI; at least 3 subjects had an SCI; and a definable intervention was being studied. Data extracted included study design, study type, subject demographics, inclusion and exclusion criteria, sample size, outcome measures, and study results. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were assessed for quality using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) assessment scale. Levels of evidence were assigned to each intervention using a modified Sackett scale.

RESULTS

The 16 articles selected for this review fell into 1 of 2 categories of nonpharmacological management of pain after SCI: physical and behavioral treatments. The pooled sample size of all studies included 433 participants. Of the 16 studies included, 7 were level 1, 3 were level 2, and 6 were level 4 studies.

CONCLUSIONS

Physical interventions demonstrated the strongest evidence based on quality of studies and numbers of RCTs in the nonpharmacological treatment of post-SCI pain. Of these interventions, transcranial electrical stimulation had the strongest evidence of reducing pain. Despite a growing body of literature, there is still a significant lack of research on the use of nonpharmacological therapies for SCI pain.