Study suggests paying too much attention to spouse's back pain can make it worse

<br>ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) _ Paying too much attention to a spouse's back pain can make it worse, according to a study presented by German psychologists. <br><br>A better strategy is to distract the pain

Monday, November 4th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) _ Paying too much attention to a spouse's back pain can make it worse, according to a study presented by German psychologists.

A better strategy is to distract the pain patient with other activities, the study suggests.

Researchers applied painful electric stimulation to the backs of 20 people with chronic back pain and measured their brain activity in response. Half the patients were married to solicitous spouses, who generally responded to their chronic pain by giving massages, fetching medicine, waiting on them and doing other such things.

The other patients had spouses who tended to play down the chronic pain, sometimes leaving the room or distracting the person with other activities.

The study results were reported Sunday at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience by lead author Herta Flor of the University of Heidelberg.

For patients with solicitous spouses, the mere presence of that spouse in the room increased the brain activity in response to the painful stimulation. These patients were also more likely to moan or make other expressions of pain. ``It's as if the spouse has become a stimulating cue for the pain,'' Flor said.

In contrast, no effect on brain activity appeared in the other patients when their spouses were in the room.

For a spouse, playing down pain appears the better course of action, Flor said.

``A spouse can be overly supportive almost to the point where they're enabling the pain,'' said Dr. Eugene Melvin, an Orlando pain specialist. ``Just a little bit of pain on the patient's part can cause a severe overreaction to the point where they don't let the patient do anything for themselves.''

Also Sunday, researchers Haverford College in Pennsylvania reported finding that untreated pain at birth may lead to lowered sensitivity to pain later in life.

In the study, Wendy Sternberg and her colleagues performed abdominal surgery on 40 mice the day they were born. Half of the mice received morphine and half received only salt water solution.

For a control, the researchers also treated mice that did not have surgery with either morphine or the salt water.

When the animals reached adulthood, they were then given a series of tests that measured their responses to pain.

``We found an overall lowering of pain sensitivity among those subjects who had surgery with no pain treatment compared to those that underwent surgery and received morphine and compared to those who did not undergo surgery,'' Sternberg said.

She said the research may eventually help scientists determine why adults have very different perceptions of pain.