There’s little doubt about it – meditation is in vogue. In fairness, it probably always has been. However, clinical and research interest in the effects of meditation programmes on psychological wellbeing has grown considerably in recent years. The development of mindfulness-based interventions has no doubt driven much of this interest. For example, running a PubMed keyword [read the full story…]
A new review by Pieper et al 2013 aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the research on treatments for both pain and challenging behaviour in people with dementia. It hinges around the fact that pain is commonly undertreated because it is not easy to recognise unless there is a diagnosed physical cause, and also because [read the full story…]
Last week, Kirsten Lawson blogged about mindfulness-based stress reduction as a treatment for breast cancer. We have featured a number of blogs on mindfulness in the last couple of years, including a piece about the use of Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). MBCT is recommended by NICE to prevent relapse in people who have already experienced three [read the full story…]
Worldwide dental caries remains one of the most prevalent chronic diseases of childhood. Sadly, in many countries a significant proportion of this decay remains untreated leading to pain, sepsis and occasionally more severe complications. Studies have shown associations between caries and poor growth, low weight gain, missed school and poorer performance. The aim of this [read the full story…]
A friend of mine is currently training to be a Yoga instructor. This got me thinking about Yoga and musculoskeletal conditions. The different Yoga poses focus on increasing the flexibility of the joints and improving postural stability through improvements in muscle strength. Yoga also aims to release the tension on muscles with the aim of [read the full story…]
Chronic pain is a major health concern, which increases in prevalence and impact with age. This is important as chronic pain can result in a significant decrease in function and quality of life along with an increase in use of health and social care. Self-management is a potentially inexpensive form of pain management and it [read the full story…]
December brings two new protocols to the Cochrane Library from the Cochrane Oral Health Group. The first of these:- Liu JLY, Walsh T, Kerr AR, Lingen M, Brocklehurst P, Ogden G, Warnakulasuriya S, Scully C. Diagnostic tests for oral cancer and potentially malignant disorders in patients presenting with clinically evident lesions (Protocol). Cochrane Database of [read the full story…]
During last winter several elves slipped on ice and landed heavily. Although initially embarrassed, most forgot the incident but a few still struggle with lateral hip pain when climbing stairs or sleeping in bed. Previously known as trochanteric bursitis, this condition is now defined as Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome (GTPS). This umbrella term covers a [read the full story…]
Describing pain is a difficult thing to do. Often we may feel our vocabulary is insufficient to capture what is happening in our bodies when we feel pain. A number of ways to help express pain have been explored, for example through the use of art. This was explored recently in a BBC radio programme [read the full story…]
We are continuing our theme this week of exercise and physical activity as the 5×50 worldwide exercise flash-mob challenge starts on Friday 23rd November (see earlier post) Do you know anyone who is waiting for a knee or hip joint replacement? They typically experience pain, reduced muscle strength and function. So how can they prepare [read the full story…]
