Pain Research to Keep an Eye On

While there were pain research breakthroughs in 2016, there is still room for progress. Researchers continue to tackle difficult questions about how pain manifests, where it comes from, and how it can be treated. Keep a close eye on some of the following studies. The knowledge may be useful for you or someone you know with chronic pain!

How Massage Can Help With Pain

Massage can help with anxiety and muscle tension, but how can it affect pain? In Royal Oak, Michigan, patients at the Beaumont Health System reported that their levels of stress and pain decreased after a clinical massage. This procedure was carried out by a massage therapist who specialized in Swedish techniques. The therapist treated the hand, scalp, and neck according to how the patient felt. With over 80 percent of the patients experiencing positive results, this research can lead to significant studies in the future to help prevent instances of chronic pain by keeping anxiety levels low.

Yoga and Back Pain

At the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Susan Wieland ran 12 studies that compared non-exercise intervention sessions to yoga classes on the effectiveness of back pain relief. Despite the high sample number of around 1,000 participants, the researchers could not find a significant connection between yoga and pain relief. Pain records recorded by participants demonstrated low to below-average improvements compared to other methods like physical therapy. While this does not exactly rule out yoga as an effective way to help relieve pain, more discretion may be needed when recommending the exercise.

Nerve Ablation for Back Pain Treatment

Nerve ablation is the medical term for destroying a nerve. This method helps stop pain signals from reaching the brain. At the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, researchers believe that the ablation of the basivertebral nerve – located within and around the vertebrae – can help relieve chronic pain developed from degenerative disc disease. Degenerate disc disease is one of the more stubborn sources of chronic pain for patients. While more research is needed before applying the method throughout all hospitals, the researchers found that patients who took this surgery in the past year reported more pain relief than those who did not.

The majority of current pain research still needs to undergo rigorous testing before conclusions are broadly implemented. There are treatments today that can address your chronic pain. For a comprehensive pain management clinic in New Jersey, contact us at Garden State Pain Center today for an appointment.