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APS
E-News 25th Annual Scientific Meeting: Register Online Today! In This Issue: APS 25th Annual Scientific Meeting APS Volunteer Spotlight: Kathleen Sluka, PhD Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship: Call for Applications for 2006 APS 2005 Future Leaders in Pain Small Research Grants APS Young Investigator Travel Support Information News Highlights from The Journal of Pain
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| Acknowledgment:
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| American
Pain Society |
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APS
25th Annual Scientific Meeting In addition to the named award lecturers featured in last month’s APS E-news, the APS Annual Scientific Meeting will also include the following distinguished plenary speakers and presentations.
Special Interest Group Meetings Several of the APS Special Interest Groups (SIGs) will meet onsite during the Annual Scientific Meeting. These meetings provide opportunities for focused sharing and learning. Read more about what these groups are offering. Thursday,
May 4 Ethics Forensic Palliative
Care Psychosocial
The Nursing SIG and Pain in Infants, Children, and Adolescents SIG will also meet at this time. Friday,
May 5 Disparities
in Pain The Clinical Trials SIG will also meet at this time. 4:30–7 pm Genetics
and Pain Saturday,
May 6 Basic
Science The
Genetics and Pain SIG will meet a second time. Measurement
in Pain and Its Impact APS secured a limited number of sleeping rooms at a special rate at the following two hotels. Make your reservations early to ensure that you obtain the special room rate. Call before April 5, 2006, because after this date, reservations will be taken on a space- and rate-available basis only. Be sure to indicate your participation in the APS conference. To confirm a reservation, the hotel requires a deposit equal to 1 night’s stay. Your deposit will confirm the reservation for the date(s) indicated and, upon check-in, will be applied to the first night of the reserved stay. All major credit cards accepted. San
Antonio Marriott Rivercenter Hilton
Palacio del Rio
The national election slate is set. Thanks to your nominations and the hard work of the APS Nominating Committee, the membership will have little trouble making a good choice in this election—all candidates are outstanding and dedicated APS members, and deeply believe in the mission of your organization. The candidates for the 2006 national election follow: Secretary Timothy
Brennan, MD PhD Directors
at Large Robert
(Bob) Jamison, PhD Srinivasa
Raja, MD George
Wilcox, PhD Nominating
Committee—Past Presidents Ron
Dubner, DDS PhD Charles
Cleeland, PhD Christine
Miaskowski, PhD RN FAAN Nominating
Committee—Members at Large Elie
Al-Chaer, PhD JD MS Knox
Todd, MD MPH Paul
Arnstein, PhD RN Michael
Clark, PhD Once again, the election will be held online, using secure online technology. In February, e-mail invitations will be sent to all voting members with active e-mail addresses. A letter of invitation about how to access the online ballot will be mailed to those without e-mail. Please take this time to add or update your e-mail address using the APS online directory or by calling an APS member services representative at 847/375-4715. Thank you in advance for doing your part to make this a record-breaking election year. Your vote matters!
APS Volunteer Spotlight: Kathleen Sluka, PhD
APS attracted Sluka because of her long-time interest in pain management and research and the organization’s unique embrace of clinical and scientific perspectives on pain. “APS offers researchers and clinicians a wide array of opportunities to collaborate in meaningful ways, which helps researchers obtain the clinical understanding they need and vice versa.” Sluka’s extensive volunteer efforts have enhanced and strengthened multidisciplinary information-sharing in APS. She has participated in numerous sessions at the APS Annual Scientific Conference and served on the APS Scientific Program Committee. She currently serves as a co-chair of the APS Basic Science SIG and recently was appointed to the APS Board of Directors as a nonvoting member representing the International Association for the Study of Pain. Sluka believes that the perspectives of physical therapists are underrepresented in the pain management field, and one of her key goals is to increase the ranks of physical therapists within APS. “Almost everyone with chronic pain sees a physical therapist, so it’s critical for PT practitioners to understand pain mechanisms,” she said. “And APS is a wonderful place for pain researchers to interact and stay in touch, and also keep up with clinical management trends and issues.”
Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship: Call for Applications for 2006 The Mayday Fund, a New York City foundation dedicated to alleviating the incidence, degree, and consequence of human physical pain, announced today that it will begin accepting applications for the 2006 Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship; A Media & Policy Fellows Initiative. This is the third year of the program designed to equip physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, scientists, and legal scholars with the necessary skills to become effective advocates and spokespeople about pain issues in the United States and Canada. Developing their communications skills, the six experts chosen will be poised to move the field forward with their willingness to educate and work with the media, policymakers, advocates, and health and business leaders. Once selected, the six fellows will attend a 4-day training in Washington, D.C. (October 22–25, 2006), and have the opportunity for 6 months of one-on-one coaching with communications professionals. They will learn how to connect with local and national media, write opinion editorials, develop relationships with university public affairs and government relations leadership, and talk with state legislators and members of Congress. Apply online at painandhealth.org/maydayfellows/fellows.html or read more. Last year’s Mayday Fellows have done everything from publishing an opinion piece in a national paper, to submitting testimony for a congressional hearing on pain, to organizing a statewide “pain summit.” They have used the tools they received in training to advance their advocacy goals. The Fellowship Program is steered by an advisory committee made up of some of the nation’s leading experts in the field. Russell Portenoy, MD, Chairman of the Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, chairs the committee. The fellows will develop skills to advocate and communicate on many of the pain issues they know most closely including pediatric pain, chronic pain, the treatment of pain with prescription pain medications, nonmedicinal treatment for pain, pain policy, clinical and basic science research on pain, and disparities in treating pain. Candidates for the fellowship must be accomplished experts in pain management, established at an institution with peer-reviewed research, and able and willing to devote a significant amount of time to using the skills learned in the fellowship. They must show an interest in going beyond their professional pursuits to inspire change or express an opinion about issues related to pain management.
APS 2005 Future Leaders in Pain Small Research Grants In 2005, APS inaugurated its Future Leaders in Pain Small Research Grants program, funded by a $50,000 grant from Endo. An APS Small Grants Committee was established, under the chairmanship of Sandra Ward, PhD RN. Members of the committee included Misha-Miroslav Backonja, MD, C. Richard Chapman, PhD, James Eisenach, MD, Roger Fillingim, PhD, Gerald Gebhart, PhD, Keela Herr, PhD RN, and Mitchell Max, MD. The grant program was announced in May, with a deadline for application of July 1. Three grants of $16,000 were offered and grant proposals could be submitted in one of several categories of research (i.e., use of analgesic medications, unwanted effects of pain treatment related to analgesic therapy, neuropathic pain, mechanisms of pain, education, and nonpharmacologic interventions or approaches to improve pain management). Eligible applicants were required to be APS members who were doctorally prepared, within 6 years of their terminal degree and who had not yet been awarded major grant funding from NIH. Thirty-six eligible applications were received and reviewed by the committee. Three applications were selected for funding: Ethnic
Differences in Acute Pain and Analgesic Side Effects Individual
Differences in Pain Modulation as a Predictor of Long-Term Pain
and Analgesic Use in Women Following Surgical Management of Breast
Cancer Development
of a Mouse Model of HIV Therapy-Induced Painful Peripheral Neuropathy
APS Young Investigator Travel Support Information For the 2006 meeting, APS is offering funding for up to 50 young investigators. Funding awards are $750 each and are available to individuals presenting paper or poster abstracts at the meeting, May 3–6, 2006 in San Antonio. Applicants may be from any research training background (basic or clinical science, psychology, medicine, or biostatistics) and may be at any level in training, including students, residents, predoctoral trainees, postdoctoral fellows, or those who have completed their postdoctoral training within the last 3 years. Applicants must be APS members. To apply for funding, complete the Young Investigator Travel Stipend Application. Applications must be completed online by February 13, 2006. If you have difficulty completing the application, contact Jennifer Reinard at jreinard@amctec.com or 847/375-4833. Applications will be reviewed by the APS Scientific Program Planning Committee, and stipends will be awarded by March 10, 2006. Notifications will be sent to all applicants after March 10, 2006. All eligible young investigators will receive their travel grants at the Annual Meeting. The APS travel stipend program is made possible through grants from the National Institutes of Health and Pfizer, Inc., as well as an allocation of operating funds from the American Pain Society.
News Highlights from The Journal of Pain
Opioid
Tolerance and Hyperalgesia in Chronic Pain Patients After 1 Month
of Oral Morphine Therapy There are no prospective studies documenting the development of opioid tolerance in chronic pain patients. In this study, Stanford researchers sought preliminary prospective evidence for the development of tolerance or hyperalgesia from sustained-acting oral opioids. Six patients with chronic low back pain were assessed before and after 1 month of oral morphine therapy. Cold pressor and experimental heat pain were used to measure pain sensitivity. Cold pressor test participants became hyperalgesic and tolerant after 1 month of morphine treatment, but the heat pain patients showed no hyperalgesia, and drug tolerance could not be evaluated. The authors believe the study validates their prospective methodology for larger trials in the future. In addition, they determined from their evidence that opioid tolerance and opioid-induced hyperalgesia might limit the clinical utility of opioids in controlling chronic pain. Asking
the Community About Cutpoints Used to Describe Mild, Moderate, and
Severe Pain Clinical practice guidelines recommend that adults use a numeric scale (0–10) to rate the severity of pain. However, in most instances, patients and clinicians use the terms mild, moderate, and severe to classify pain. This study assessed how well numeric scales correlate with the tri-level classification to identify numeric boundaries used by 287 adults to describe mild, moderate, and severe pain. Ranges reported for each pain level were 1.3–3.6 for mild pain, 4.3–6.5 for moderate pain, and 7.5–9.8 for severe pain. These findings support using numeric scales more extensively in clinical practice. The authors concluded that having standard categories to describe pain severity might increase clinician confidence in using numeric scales to make treatment decisions. Pain
and Attention: Attentional Disruption or Distraction? For this study, the authors hypothesized that pain would negatively influence task performance under different load manipulations. Some studies have shown allocating attention to a cognitive task can modulate pain perception, and difficult tasks are more successful in altering pain perception. Conversely, there is research showing that when the task difficulty is high, patients in moderate-to-severe pain performed worse compared with patients with low or no pain. Two experiments were performed using high and low task loads combined with a painfully cold or neutral cold pressor test. The researchers found that pain processing interferes with highly demanding attentional task performance as a result of difficulties in allocating attention. Clinically this is relevant because patients might be able to distract attention from their pain by performing a highly demanding task.
International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) is pleased to announce a call for applications for the IASP Research Grants funded by the Scan/Design by Inger and Jens Bruun Foundation, which were awarded for the first time in 2005. Two grants will be awarded—one for clinical research and one for basic research. These will be small, collaborative grant awards with a maximum of U.S. $10,000 each, subject to the conditions described below. Deadline for receipt of applications by IASP is April 30, 2006. Awards will be announced by June 30, 2006. For more information or an application, please contact IASP at kathyh@iasp-pain.org, 206/283-0311, or visit www.iasp-pain.org.
Read more about some of San Antonio’s off-the-beaten-path attractions or contact the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau via its Web site, www.sanantoniocvb.com, or at 800/447-3372. San Antonio: Off the Beaten Path, But Near the River Walk Southwest
School of Art & Craft Hard
Rock Cafe in San Antonio Rio
San Antonio Cruises Vbar Howl
at the Moon Saloon Polly
Esther’s/Culture Club Ghost
Tours San Antonio Ghosts
& Legends of San Antonio Tour Cementville
Laboratory + Cafe Connect
to more information about San Antonio by visiting the following
links: |
Endocannabinoids
and Other Lipid Modulators of Pain
Chronic
Pain: Lessons from the Pains of Endometriosis
The
Science of Migraine
Diagnostic
Evaluation of Low Back Pain and Disc Degeneration
Kathleen
Sluka joined APS approximately 15 years ago at the start of her
academic career at the University of Iowa. An active researcher,
Sluka is an associate professor of physical therapy and rehabilitative
sciences and teaches a course on the basic science and management
of pain.
The
following highlights summarize selected articles from the January
2006 issue (volume 7, number 1) of The Journal of Pain. 
San
Antonio is a rich and lively blend of culture, fun and flavor—colorful
and slightly spicy! Be prepared for a wonderful combination of history,
cuisine, arts, music, and fun. In May, the average temperature during
the day is in the mid-80s and the low around 65°. It will be
a delightful time of year to stroll along one of San Antonio’s
jewels—the Paseo del Rio. Better known as the “River
Walk,” these cobblestone and flagstone paths border both sides
of the San Antonio River as it winds its way through the middle
of the business district. The River Walk has multiple personalities—quiet
and park-like in some stretches, full of activity with European-style
sidewalk cafes, specialty boutiques, nightclubs, and gleaming high-rise
hotels in others. At night, when the stars are big and bright, the
clubs overflow with music, dancing, and visitors from around the
world. The river’s floating transportation system provides
a novel method of sightseeing and people watching in downtown San
Antonio.