Does experience influence judgments of pain behaviour? Evidence from relatives of pain patients and therapists

OBJECTIVE

Judgments about an individual's pain can be profoundly important to sufferers. Relatively few studies have examined variables that may affect observers' judgments of the pain of others. The present article reports two studies investigating the relationship between different kinds of exposure to pain problems and observers' ratings of the pain intensity of patients.

DESIGN

In the first study, 82 observers were classified into groups with positive and negative family histories of chronic pain. They viewed a videotape showing the facial expressions of shoulder pain patients undergoing physiotherapy assessments and rated the pain experienced by the subjects. In the second study, the data from observers having no experience with pain problems were compared with data collected from therapists having considerable experience with pain problems.

RESULTS

Observers with a positive family history of chronic pain attributed greater pain to the patients than those with a negative family history of chronic pain. Professionals' pain judgments were lower than those of control subjects.

CONCLUSIONS

Together, the findings imply that one's experiences with the different problems of pain patients may affect pain judgments. Alternative interpretations of the findings are considered.

Joints of the cervical vertebral column

The developing understanding of the morphology of the cervical spine has revealed the complexity of the system. A review of selected literature reported that a number of the joints have an unusual nature and exhibit complicated and even paradoxical motions. For the practicing therapist, the significance of these observations is that assessment and treatment procedures of the cervical spine must be very carefully analyzed. There are significant differing behaviors of some of the cervical joints in response to small changes in movement patterns or initial positioning. Therefore it is not possible to broadly classify results of assessment procedures as normal or pathological without a clear and detailed understanding of the underlying morphology.

Morphology of the cervical intervertebral disc: implications for McKenzie's model of the disc derangement syndrome

Studies which have examined the cervical intervertebral disc have demonstrated that it is not morphologically similar to the lumbar intervertebral disc. Yet review of the clinical literature has revealed that clinicians have often based clinical theories on the assumption that the cervical and lumbar discs do have a similar structure. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature regarding the morphology of the cervical intervertebral disc in relation to McKenzie's clinical theories which claim that the nucleus pulposus of the adult cervical intervertebral disc may be repositioned. Discussion of the proposed biological mechanisms underlying examination and treatment techniques is imperative if the basis of these techniques is to be better understood.

Two major DNA variants present in serially propagated stocks of the WR strain of vaccinia virus

Two major DNA variants have been isolated from serially propagated stocks of the WR strain of vaccinia virus. Restriction enzyme mapping of the two variants with HindIII, AvaI, XhoI, SstII, and SmaI revealed a 6.3-megadalton deletion in the smaller DNA variant. The deletion was mapped at ca. 6.8 megadaltons in from the left terminus, just beyond the inverted terminal repeat. The additional DNA present in the larger variant was found to represent unique viral sequences that were transcribed both in vitro and in vivo. One-step growth curves in HeLa cells revealed no difference in rat of replication or burst size when progeny was scored on CV-1 monolayers.