Following new approaches to chronic pain management, mechanism-based therapy is considered more effective than diagnosis-based treatment (Levin, 2004, Nijs et al., 2019a). Pain phenotyping is a challenging issue that seems to contribute to the provision of individualized rehabilitation and patient-centered care (Nijs et al., 2021).
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COVID-19, a highly infectious disease that was first reported in Wuhan in China in December 2019, has definitely changed our behaviour. COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The World Health Organisation has declared COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11th, 2020 due to the rapid increase in number of confirmed cases (Wang et al. 2020).
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The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (1). Pain is considered as a warning system for tissue damage.
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It is well known that pain is a complex phenomenon with challenging treatment. The Department of Health and Human Services recently published a National Pain Strategy, highlighting the insufficient training in pain assessment and treatment for many clinicians.
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There is no doubt that musculoskeletal pain is a complex multidimensional phenomenon. At present, musculoskeletal pain diagnosis is based primarily on signs and symptoms, sometimes combined with evidence of disease, structural damage, or injury.
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Can we train the chemo-brain?   September 23rd, 2020
“When I meet a friend on the street, I can’t even remember her name.”
 “Where did I leave my keys?”
 “Oh, darn I forgot my doctor’s appointment today!”
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At the start of this research series, we were asking the clinical question as to why central sensitisation (CS) develops in some people and not in others. Is it something to do with their personal characteristics of sensitivity? Here, I want to outline what we did to begin investigating this and summarise for you the proposals we came up with.
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Despite the long history of usage in medicine, psychology, sociology and other sciences, the terms “moderator”, “mediator”, “predictor” and “prognostic factor” still seem to elicit discussions among researchers. Several authors have described how these terms are used interchangeably, neglecting important careful handling
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By now, it is a well-known fact that low back pain is a very common condition disabling a lot of people during the span of their lives, as well as that many of these people have to undergo lumbar surgery at one point or another.
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As a physiotherapist, I see many patients with low back pain (LBP). The type of intervention varies from patient to patient, and moderate treatment effects are observed. LBP is a well-known health problem with high socioeconomic costs (Hoy et al., 2012).
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Self‐efficacy (SE) is defined as an individual's confidence or belief in their ability to achieve behavioral goals in a specific field (Bandura, 1977). In the context of chronic pain SE refers to beliefs held by people with chronic pain that are able to carry out certain activities, even when experiencing pain.
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For many patients, ongoing or recurrent pain severely impacts their physical, social and mental health, as it interrupts ongoing activities and thereby continuously interferes with daily life functioning.
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Just imagine, going to a medical practice with your child for an injection. Or for those of you that are not a parent yet, go back in time for a second and think of a moment you remember going for a puncture procedure yourself with your mother or father.
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​For a while now, (healthy) nutrition is a major topic of interest in society. Every day there seems to be a new superfood-hype or need-to-follow diet. All these options can be overwhelming, making it difficult for people to see the wood for the trees. Also within the chronic pain field, the need for clear nutritional guidelines is increasing, with both patients and clinicians asking for specific advise in this area.
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In this digital era, healthcare services are more and more evolving towards eHealth applications. Especially for educational and behavioral interventions digital applications are becoming very popular in clinical practice but also in research.
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The term “whiplash” is given to the acceleration-deceleration mechanism of energy transfer to the neck and head at impact. It may result from rear-end or side-impact motor vehicle collisions, but can also occur during sport (horse riding, diving, snowboarding) and other mishaps.
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‘Occupational therapy is a client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and wellbeing through occupation’ (WFOT, 2012). It is based on the assumption that there is a relationship between occupation, health, and wellbeing and that engagement in occupations can enhance, maintain or restore health (Le Granse et al., 2017).
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A normal healthy heart does not tick evenly like a metronome. We know that the normal resting rhythm of the heart is highly variable rather than monotonously regular.
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