scholarly journals Survey of Spinal Cord Stimulation Hardware Currently Available for the Treatment of Chronic Pain in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josephine A. Clingan ◽  
Ashish Patel ◽  
Dermot P. Maher

Background: The number of spinal cord stimulator (SCS) units sold in the United States (US) for the treatment of chronic pain has increased with a corresponding expansion in the number of different SCS platforms available. Each marketed stimulator has several unique features, indications, and limitations, which distinguish one from the other and makes the selection of appropriate hardware possible for optimal patient care. There are an even greater number of similar and overlapping features between SCS.Measures: We used market analysis techniques to survey the currently available SCS technology. We then reviewed published device specifications and manuals for comparison of features.Outcomes: As of 2020, there are nine commonly used SCS platforms made by four manufacturers including four SCS units from Abbott, three from Boston Scientific, and one each from Medtronic and Nevro.Conclusions: A working understanding of each SCS product's nuances is needed for selecting the most appropriate device with which to manage chronic pain patients. Here we present a brief survey of currently available SCS hardware in the US and the features that make each product unique.

Pain Practice ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 1001-1011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter W. Park ◽  
Richard D. Dryer ◽  
Rozelle Hegeman-Dingle ◽  
Jack Mardekian ◽  
Gergana Zlateva ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-212
Author(s):  
Andrew Auyeung ◽  
Hank Wang ◽  
Iulia Pirvulescu ◽  
Nebojša Knežević

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has generated considerable turmoil in the interventional pain management (IPM) community. Due to IPM being classified as 'elective', numerous pain practices across the United States were forced to close during the pandemic, leaving chronic pain patients untreated for indefinite periods, and IPM physicians with increased stress and burnout. Results: In response to these detrimental effects, various re-opening tools and techniques have been created to facilitate a cautious resumption of in-person interventional pain practice. Due to their ability to minimize person-to-person contact, telehealth and pharmacotherapy played a more significant role in IPM during the pandemic, but their increased utilization has also led to the exacerbation of substance abuse and the opioid epidemic. The interplay between steroid use and its immunosuppressive effects, in relation to the COVID-19 infection and the COVID-19 vaccine, has also arisen as an issue of concern. Conclusion: As practices begin to safely re-open throughout the United States, the effects felt by chronic pain patients during the pandemic must be emphasized and not ignored. This review emphasizes the struggles pain patients have had to face during the pandemic and the need to update and redefine regulations regarding interventional and chronic pain management.


Author(s):  
Vishwanath Sankarasubramanian ◽  
Srinivas Chiravuri ◽  
Ehsan Mirzakhalili ◽  
Carlos J. Anaya ◽  
John Ryan Scott ◽  
...  

English Today ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 21-28
Author(s):  
Carmen Ebner

Having studied attitudes towards usage problems such as the notorious split infinitive or the ubiquitous literally in British English as part of my doctoral thesis, I was intrigued by the sheer lack of scientific studies investigating such attitudes. What was even more intriguing was to discover that the same field and the same usage problems seem to have received a different treatment in the United States of America. While my search for previously conducted usage attitude studies in Great Britain has largely remained fruitless, besides two notable exceptions which I will discuss in detail below (see Section 3), a similar search for American usage attitude studies resulted in a different picture. Considerably more such studies seem to have been conducted in the US than in Great Britain. On top of cultural and linguistic differences between these two nations, it seems as if they also hold different attitudes towards studying attitudes towards usage problems. Now the following question arises: why do we find such contradictory scientific traditions in these two countries? In this paper, I will provide an overview of a selection of American and British usage attitude studies. Taking into account differences between the American and British studies with regard to the number of usage problems studied, the populations surveyed and the methods applied, I will attempt to capture manifestations of two seemingly diverging attitudes towards the study of usage problems. By doing so, I will provide a possible explanation for the lack of attention being paid to usage attitudes in Great Britain.


2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven D. Passik, PhD ◽  
Kenneth L. Kirsh, PhD ◽  
Laurie Whitcomb, MA ◽  
Jeffrey R. Schein, PhD, MPH ◽  
Mitchell A. Kaplan, PhD ◽  
...  

The increasingly common practice of long-term opioid therapy for chronic noncancer pain must be guided by ongoing assessment of four types of outcomes: pain relief, function, side effects, and drug-related behaviors. Our objective was to gather initial pilot data on the clinical application of a specialized chart note, the Pain Assessment and Documentation Tool (PADT), which was developed and tested with 27 physicians. This pilot test provided the means to collect cross-sectional outcome data on a large sample of opioid-treated chronic pain patients. Each of the physician volunteers (located in a variety of settings across the United States) completed the PADT for a convenience sample of personally treated chronic pain patients who had received at least three months of opioid therapy. Completion of the PADT required a clinical interview, review of the medical chart, and direct clinical observation. Data from the PADTs were collated and analyzed. The results suggested that the majority of patients with chronic pain achieve relatively positive outcomes in the eyes of their prescribing physicians in all four relevant domains with opioid therapy. Analgesia was modest but meaningful, functionality was generally stabilized or improved, and side effects were tolerable. Potentially aberrant behaviors were common but viewed as an indicator of a problem (i.e., addiction or diversion) in only approximately 10 percent of cases. Using the PADT, physician ratings can be developed in four domains. In this sample, outcomes suggested that opioid therapy provided meaningful analgesia.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document