Fibromyalgia poses challenges extending beyond physical symptoms due to societal misconceptions and inadequate understanding. Clinicians emphasize the importance of addressing mental health, engaging patients actively, and creating supportive environments to improve the wellbeing of these patients.
When Arkansas Tech University student Katie Heflin of Dover received the opportunity to provide scholarship assistance for her fellow students, she came through with a record-breaking performance.
A new study by researchers from Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School found that among participants in the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University, Black players experienced more intense and higher levels of pain that interfered with daily activities than white players. The findings, published in the journal Pain, represent one of the largest studies on pain in racial and ethnic minorities, and lend support to similar findings of race-related disparities in chronic pain in general populations.
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Although guidelines do not recommend use of opioids to manage pain for individuals with knee osteoarthritis, a recent study published early online in
Arthritis Care & Research, an official journal of the American College of Rheumatology and the Association of Rheumatology Professionals, estimates that 858,000 Americans use opioids such as tramadol and oxycodone for their knee pain, equating to $14 billion in lifetime opioid-related societal costs, or nearly $0.5 billion annually.
A team led by Elena Losina, PhD, Robert W. Lovett Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, of Brigham and Women s Hospital, used a computer simulation to estimate the annual and lifetime contribution of opioids to knee osteoarthritis-related costs. The researchers show the direct medical cost of knee osteoarthritis treatment including opioids totals $7.45 billion or 53 percent of the total lifetime costs. The remaining 47 percent of lifetime costs to society is used to pay for lost productivity at wor