Pain Management Commons^™

The Effects Of Primary And Secondary Task Workloads On Cybersickness In Immersive Virtual Active Exploration Experiences, Rohith Venkatakrishnan

All Dissertations

Virtual reality (VR) technology promises to transform humanity. The technology enables users to explore and interact with computer-generated environments that can be simulated to approximate or deviate from reality. This creates an endless number of ways to propitiously apply the technology in our lives. It follows that large technological conglomerates are pushing for the widespread adoption of VR, financing the creation of the Metaverse - a hypothetical representation of the next iteration of the internet.

Even with VR technology's continuous growth, its widespread adoption remains long overdue. This can largely be attributed to an affliction called cybersickness, an analog to …

Taking The Social Out Of Social Media: Social Media Induced Loneliness As A Mechanism For Elevated Depression During The Pandemic, Samara Rosen

Honors Theses

During the COVID-19 pandemic health protocols limited in-person interactions, interrupting the undergraduate experience and prompting students to find virtual ways to connect with their peers. A key goal of this study was to assess whether college students’ social media use was a viable replacement for in-person interactions during the pandemic, reducing risk for psychological difficulties that ordinarily accompany social isolation. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate loneliness as a potential mediator underlying the longitudinal relationship between social media use and depression. Self-report data were collected in November 2020 (T1), February 2021 (T2), and May 2021 (T3). The …

Pain-Related Fear: Metacognitive And Health Belief Predictors Of Cogniphobia, Maddison Miles

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Individuals who have an unreasonable fear of headache pain or painful re-injury during cognitive exertion are said to suffer from a pain-related fear referred to as cogniphobia. Specifically, individuals high in cogniphobia avoid cognitive tasks in an attempt to reduce the risk of initiating or exacerbating headache-related pain. While health beliefs concerning pain-related fear have been examined through the concept of kinesiophobia, defined as the unreasonable fear of pain or painful re-injury during physical movement, little research has been done through a cognitive framework. The health anxiety beliefs, metacognitive factors, and negative thinking patterns related to cogniphobia remain unclear. This …

Effects Of One Neurofeedback Session On Relationship Between Fear-Of-Pain And Visual Avoidance Of Pain, Timothy Swift

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chronic pain is increasingly prevalent and costly and will continue to be with the increasing mean age of America’s population. It is important to identify interventions addressing pain-related biopsychosocial aspects. The purpose of the current study was to examine if a single session of specific neurofeedback (NF) protocols had an effect on subjective fear and physiological fear-avoidance behaviors in relation to pain-related stimuli. Correlational analyses revealed that FPQ-III minor pain scores were negatively associated with total fixation duration while looking at pain-related pictures. One-way ANOVAs revealed differences approaching significance for those trained on Left-Hemisphere NF protocols compared to those in …

Dancing, Mindfulness, And Our Emotions: Embracing The Mind, Body, And Sole, Alisha M. Collins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project examines dance, as an intervention and mindfulness practice that assists with managing our emotions. There is a need for dance therapy in social institutions such as, healthcare facilities, schools, and community centers. Dance therapy has the potential to reduce negative emotions, create mindfulness, improve self-expression, and promote a healthy well-being. I am proposing that dance therapy is applied as a regular practice in social institutions to develop mindfulness and promote emotional stability.

In this study, I argue that dance therapy can contribute to our well-being long term. In addition to this written thesis, a visual component of …

The Empathy Mitigation: Empathy And Its Impact On Pain Perception And Altruistic Motivation, Amanda Daly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Empathy and its impact on pain perception has been studied narrowly with the focus being on participants receiving empathy during a pain procedure. This study reversed the focus and ran a standard cold pressor test (CPT) in the context of an empathy frame structured to elicit an empathic response for others from participants. It was hypothesized that the group receiving the empathic frame would have longer CPT times due to alterations in pain perception from empathy activation and these subjects’ self-reported state-trait empathy level would positively correlate with the increased times. 85 subjects participated with a control group of 43 …

Chronic Pain Causal Attributions In An Interdisciplinary Primary Care Clinic: Patient-Provider And Provider-Provider Discrepancies, Bryan Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of pain causal attributions on patient pain-related functioning, treatment engagement, and clinical outcomes. Additionally, the impact of discordant pain causal attributions between patients and their providers as well as between interdisciplinary providers was examined. Patients rated their pain functioning and causal pain attributions during a regular clinic visit. Following the patient’s visit both the behavioral medicine provider and internal medicine resident provided ratings of similar pain-related functioning domains and causal attributions. Follow-up data were collected from the electronic medical record three months following that clinic visit. Overall, results revealed …

Learning To Combat Chronic Pain: Exploring The Effectiveness Of A Six-Week Patient Psychoeducation Course Teaching Self-Management Of Chronic Pain, Serita Backstrand

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Abstract Chronic pain is a highly prevalent health problem in the U.S. and poses a large economic and temporal cost to the medical system (Institute of Medicine, 2011; Marcus, 2003). Patients with chronic pain typically report a decrease in emotional, social, and economic functioning (Bair et. al, 2009; Breen, 2002; Kang, Backstrand, & Parker, 2013). This study investigated the efficacy of a 6-week evidence-based group psychoeducation course for the self-management of chronic pain. Pre- and post-test measures were utilized to assess results of the course. Data were analyzed using a paired sample t-test in order to explore the relationship and …

Cognitive And Psychophysiological Investigation Of Chronic Pain, Amy D. Clegg

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Using Bower’s (1981) associative network model of mood and memory, and Klinger’s theory of current concerns, it was hypothesized that the experience of chronic pain may be functionally similar to a mood state and that the chronicity of the condition may maintain it as a current concern. Specifically, it was hypothesized that chronic pain patients would not show any differences in reaction time and accuracy when making lexical decisions about pain-related, neutral, and nonwords. However, it was anticipated that chronic pain patients would show differences in physiological responding (particularly, increased skin conductance responses) when compared to controls. Results confirmed that …