The Effect of Acupuncture Treatment on the Perception of Pain and Coping With Pain

Overview

The Purpose of this study is to evaluate whether cognitive and emotional components take part in the positive acupuncture effect on pain.

The effect of acupuncture on pain intensity has been already investigated and confirmed. Recent publication (Pariente J., et a., 2005) indicated that acupuncture may affect midbrain areas, that are associated with cognitive control of pain. The Pain Self Regulation Model (Levental, 1980)distinguishes between emotional response pain representations and cognitive pain representations. According to this model, emotional and cognitive pain representations leads to a new (cognitive or emotional) evaluation of the pain, that affects its perception and the ability to cope with it (Levental at al., 2001). This study will try to assess the hypothesis that acupuncture treatment is involved in this process. The study is designed as pilot study, limited to 45 patients.

Conditions

Interventions

Eligibility

Locations (1)