Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic disorder characterized by widespread and persistent musculoskeletal pain and other frequent symptoms such as fatigue, insomnia, morning stiffness, cognitive ...impairment, depression, and anxiety. FMS is also accompanied by different comorbidities like irritable bowel syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome. Although some factors like negative events, stressful environments, or physical/emotional traumas may act as predisposing conditions, the etiology of FMS remains unknown. There is evidence of a high prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities in FMS (especially depression, anxiety, borderline personality, obsessive-compulsive personality, and post-traumatic stress disorder), which are associated with a worse clinical profile. There is also evidence of high levels of negative affect, neuroticism, perfectionism, stress, anger, and alexithymia in FMS patients. High harm avoidance together with high self-transcendence, low cooperativeness, and low self-directedness have been reported as temperament and character features in FMS patients, respectively. Additionally, FMS patients tend to have a negative self-image and body image perception, as well as low self-esteem and perceived self-efficacy. FMS reduces functioning in physical, psychological, and social spheres, and also has a negative impact on cognitive performance, personal relationships (including sexuality and parenting), work, and activities of daily life. In some cases, FMS patients show suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and consummated suicide. FMS patients perceive the illness as a stigmatized and invisible disorder, and this negative perception hinders their ability to adapt to the disease. Psychological interventions may constitute a beneficial complement to pharmacological treatments in order to improve clinical symptoms and reduce the impact of FMS on health-related quality of life.
Migraine headache is a pain condition characterized by severe and recurrent unilateral head pain. Among other mechanisms, central pain sensitization processes seem to be involved in the disorder. An ...experimental protocol based on slowly repeated evoked pain (SREP) has been shown to indicate pain sensitization in fibromyalgia patients and differentiate these patients from healthy individuals and rheumatoid arthritis patients. This study examined SREP sensitization in migraine patients and explored its potential usefulness as a central sensitization marker. The SREP protocol was administered to 40 episodic migraine (EM) patients not currently experiencing a headache and 40 healthy controls. SREP consisted of a series of 9 suprathreshold painful pressure stimuli of 5 s duration and a 30 s interstimulus interval. SREP sensitization was indexed by the increase in pain ratings across the stimuli. Pain threshold, pain tolerance and temporal summation of pain were also assessed. SREP sensitization was observed in EM, but not in healthy individuals (p < .001). SREP differentiated between EM and healthy individuals with up to 75% diagnostic accuracy. Pain threshold, pain tolerance and temporal summation of pain did not show significant discriminative ability. An SREP index value of 0.5 was the most sensitive cut-off for detecting central pain sensitization when prioritizing diagnostic sensitivity (0.88). Results provide evidence for SREP as a possible central sensitization marker with potential clinical utility in migraine patients. Inclusion of SREP in Quantitative Sensory Testing protocols may enhance the assessment of altered pain modulation in different pain conditions.
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic illness characterized by widespread pain and other clinical and emotional symptoms. The lack of objective markers of the illness has been a persistent problem ...in FMS research, clinical management, and social recognition of the disease. A critical historical revision of diagnostic criteria for FMS, especially those formulated by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), was performed. This narrative review has been structured as follows: Introduction; historical background of FMS, including studies proposing and revising the diagnostic criteria; the process of development of the ACR FMS diagnostic criteria (1990 and 2010 versions); revisions of the 2010 ACR FMS diagnostic criteria; the development of scales based on the 2010 and 2011 criteria, which could help with diagnosis and evaluation of the clinical severity of the disease, such as the Polysymptomatic Distress Scale and the FMS Survey Questionnaire; relationships of prevalence and sex ratio with the different diagnostic criteria; validity and diagnostic accuracy of the ACR FMS criteria; the issues of differential diagnosis and comorbidity; the strength and main limitations of the ACR FMS criteria; new perspectives regarding FMS diagnosis; and the impact of the novel findings in the diagnosis of FMS. It is concluded that despite the official 2010 FMS diagnostic criteria and the diagnostic proposal of 2011 and 2016, complaints from health professionals and patients continue.
Abstract
Objective
Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain syndrome characterized by central sensitization. A novel protocol based on slowly repeated evoked pain (SREP) appears to be a useful marker of pain ...sensitization in fibromyalgia patients. Whether SREP enhances diagnostic accuracy beyond key clinical symptoms that characterize fibromyalgia has not been examined.
Methods
Fifty fibromyalgia patients, 30 rheumatoid arthritis patients, and 50 healthy individuals were evaluated to assess clinical pain, as well as fatigue, insomnia, pain catastrophizing, and negative mood. The SREP protocol consisted of a series of nine low-intensity painful pressure stimuli of five seconds’ duration with 30-second interstimulus intervals. SREP sensitization was indexed by increases in pain intensity ratings across stimuli.
Results
SREP sensitization was observed in fibromyalgia but not in rheumatoid arthritis or healthy individuals. As expected, fibromyalgia patients exhibited a more negative psychosocial profile than did rheumatoid arthritis patients and healthy individuals. SREP was positively associated with clinical pain, fatigue, insomnia, and catastrophizing, but not with negative mood. SREP discriminated fibromyalgia cases from rheumatoid arthritis and healthy individuals even when current clinical pain was included in the analysis. Combining fatigue, insomnia, and SREP led to near perfect diagnostic accuracy (99%) in differentiating fibromyalgia from healthy individuals and 86.3% accuracy in discriminating fibromyalgia from rheumatoid arthritis.
Conclusions
These results provide further evidence of SREP as a marker of pain sensitization in fibromyalgia and suggest that it captures aspects of fibromyalgia not fully captured by clinical features. Combining SREP with assessment of clinical features could potentially improve fibromyalgia diagnosis.
Background
Patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) usually display a decrease in health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This decrease in HRQoL is related to clinical pain, anxiety, and depression. ...This cross-sectional study analyzes the mediating role of pain-coping strategies (especially catastrophizing) in the negative relationships of pain, anxiety, depression, and HRQoL in FMS.
Methods
One hundred and thirteen women with FMS and 63 healthy women were assessed using the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). Participants completed self-report questionnaires to evaluate clinical pain, anxiety, depression, and pain-coping strategies.
Results
Pain catastrophizing was inversely associated with the physical function, general health perception, vitality, emotional role, mental health, the physical and mental general components, and the global index of HRQoL, with percentages of variance explained ranging between 9 and 18%. Cognitive distraction showed a positive association with the physical function, general health perception, vitality, emotional role, mental health, physical component, and global index of HRQoL, with percentages of variance explained ranging between 4 and 7%. Mediation analysis showed that catastrophizing mediates the negative influence of clinical pain and trait-anxiety on the physical function, general health perception, vitality, mental health, and global index of HRQoL. No mediating effect of pain catastrophizing on the relation between depression and HRQoL was observed.
Conclusions
Patients with FMS exhibited markedly lower HRQoL than healthy individuals. While pain catastrophizing was inversely related to several domains of HRQL, associations were positive for cognitive distraction. Catastrophizing mediates the negative influence of clinical pain and trait-anxiety on HRQoL. Therefore, cognitive behavioral treatments focused on adaptive management and control of catastrophizing and negative emotional states may be helpful.
Alterations in autonomic activity are well established in fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Previous studies found reduced parasympathetic activity and sympathetic reactivity to physical and stress ...manipulations. However, sympathetic activity at rest has not been well studied in FMS. Sweating is exclusively controlled by sympathetic mechanisms. In this study, skin conductance (SC), as an indirect measure of sweating, was analyzed in 45 women with FMS and 38 healthy women. Tonic SC levels were recorded during a 4-minute rest period, and a breathing maneuver consisting of deep breathing with posterior breath holding was used to evoke SC responses. Associations of tonic SC with state anxiety and body temperature, measured in the hand, were explored to determine sweat functionality. The results showed reduced tonic SC levels, with a less marked decrease in SC during the recording period, and blunted SC reactivity to the breathing manipulation in FMS patients relative to healthy participants. Positive associations of SC with state anxiety and body temperature were observed in healthy participants, but these associations were absent in FMS patients. These results indicate alterations of sweating in FMS, suggesting reduced tonic and reactivity sympathetic influences. Furthermore, the absence of associations between SC levels and state anxiety and body temperature in the patient sample suggested a loss of functionality of the autonomic nervous system in FMS. Diminished autonomic regulation in FMS would reduce the ability to cope with environmental demands, thus favoring increases in stress and pain levels. Finally, the observed reduction in sweating is in accordance with evidence of small nerve fiber neuropathy in FMS.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Mirth is elicited by the perception of humor, which requires the resolution of an incongruity in an unexpected and playful manner. Previous psychophysiological research using affective pictures is ...scarce, and did not elucidate the cognitive and affective components of the humor process. In this study, the passive viewing paradigm is applied to mirthful, incongruent, neutral and erotic pictures to characterize the emotional response of mirth. Physiological (zygomaticus major ZM activity, skin conductance response SCR and heart rate HR), behavioral (free viewing time) and subjective responses (mirthful ratings) were recorded from 63 participants. The presence of an inflection change in the ZM response and mirthfulness ratings were used as markers of humor comprehension. Participants showed the greatest ZM and HR in response to mirthful compared to incongruent, erotic and neutral pictures, as well as a stronger SCR response to mirthful compared to incongruent and neutral pictures. The overall results shed light on the temporal course of the humor process, suggesting that humor comprehension (cognitive component) occurred around 1000–1500 ms after picture onset, according to the ZM and SCR responses; and the humor appreciation stage (emotional component) occurred at around 3500 ms after stimulus onset, according to the HR and SCR changes. Moreover, marked interindividual variability was observed in the number of smiles, and in the pictures that provoked them. This points to the complexity of the humor process, and suggests the need to develop methods to elicit mirth and elucidate the factors potentially underlying individual differences in humor.
To characterize the emotional response of mirth, the passive viewing paradigm is applied to mirthful, incongruent, neutral and erotic pictures while recording physiological, behavioral and subjective responses. Our results showed increased zygomatic, heart rate and skin conductance responses to mirthful pictures. The latencies of these responses provide insight into the temporal course of the cognitive and emotional components of the humor process.
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain accompanied by symptoms like depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance and fatigue. In addition, affected patients ...frequently report cognitive disruption such as forgetfulness, concentration difficulties or mental slowness. Though cognitive deficits in FMS have been confirmed in various studies, not much is known about the mechanisms involved in their origin. This study aimed to investigate the contribution of affect-related variables to cognitive impairments in FMS. For this purpose, 67 female FMS patients and 32 healthy control subjects completed a battery of cognitive tests measuring processing speed, attention, visuospatial and verbal memory, cognitive flexibility and planning abilities. In addition, participants completed self-report questionnaires pertaining to positive and negative affect, alexithymia, pain catastrophizing and self-esteem. Clinical characteristics including pain severity, symptoms of depression and anxiety, insomnia and fatigue were also assessed. FMS patients showed markedly poorer performance than healthy controls in all of the cognitive domains assessed, in addition to greater levels of depression, anxiety, negative affect, alexithymia and pain catastrophizing, and lower self-esteem and positive affect. In exploratory correlation analysis in the FMS sample, lower cognitive performance was associated with higher pain severity, depression, anxiety, negative affect, alexithymia and pain catastrophizing, as well as lower self-esteem and positive affect. However, in regression analyses, pain, self-esteem, alexithymia, and pain catastrophizing explained the largest portion of the variance in performance. While interference effects of clinical pain in cognition have been previously described, the present findings suggest that affective factors also substantially contribute to the genesis of cognitive impairments. They support the notion that affective disturbances form a crucial aspect of FMS pathology, whereas strategies aiming to improve emotional regulation may be a beneficial element of psychological therapy in the management of FMS.
•Clinical and psychological factors play a relevant role in the decrease of Health Related Quality of Life in Fibromyalgia Syndrome patients.•Fibromyalgia Syndrome pain and related functional ...disability may increase depression and anxiety, aggravating the primary symptoms of Fibromyalgia Syndrome and indirectly increasing the negative influence of pain on Health Related Quality of Life.•It is necessary to evaluate and treat aversive emotional states in Fibromyalgia Syndrome.
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic pain condition associated with a substantial decrease in health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This study investigated the relationships of HRQoL with clinical parameters of FMS (pain, insomnia and fatigue) and affective variables (depression and anxiety).
Women with FMS (n=145) and healthy women (n=94) completed the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) to evaluate HRQoL, and self-report questionnaires pertaining to clinical pain, symptoms of anxiety and depression, fatigue and insomnia. Patterns of associations were assessed by correlation, multiple linear regression, and mediation analyses.
FMS patients showed lower scores on all SF-36 scales than healthy individuals. Clinical and emotional factors were inversely associated with SF-36 scores. Although depression was the strongest predictor of global HRQoL (explaining 36% of its variance), clinical pain and fatigue were the main predictors of physical components of HRQoL; depression and trait-anxiety were the main predictors of mental HRQoL components. Results of mediation analysis showed that depression, trait-anxiety and fatigue mediated the effect of clinical pain on HRQoL. Additionally, depression, trait-anxiety and fatigue mutually influenced each other, increasing their negative effects on the different areas of HRQoL.
Among all emotional factors, only anxiety and depression were considered.
Our results suggest that FMS pain and related functional disability may increase depression and anxiety, in turn aggravating the primary symptoms of FMS and indirectly increasing the negative influence of pain on HRQoL. These results showed the need to evaluate and treat negative affective states in FMS.
The study investigated relationships between autonomic cardiovascular control and attentional performance. In 60 healthy subjects R-wave to pulse interval (RPI), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), ...heart rate variability in the mid-frequency (MF) band and sensitivity of the cardiac baroreflex (BRS) were assessed at rest and during a visual attention test. All parameters decreased markedly during test execution. Lower values of resting BRS predicted increased performance. On-task RPI, RSA, MF power and BRS were inversely related to attentional functioning, with RSA accounting for the largest portion of test score variance. The inverse association between resting BRS and performance is discussed as reflecting the bottom-up modulation of cerebral function by baroreceptor activity. The results concerning the on-task measures suggest that a pattern of cardiovascular adjustment including enhanced sympathetic and reduced vagal cardiovascular influences, as well as baroreflex inhibition may induce an adaptive state associated with improved cognitive-attentional functioning.
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