Athlete pain tolerance could aid treatment
Friday May 18th, 2012
Athletes’ ability to tolerate pain for longer than non-athletes could give pain management specialists new ways of treating patients, researchers reported yesterday.
While
athletes can tolerate a higher level of pain than normally active people,
their pain threshold, the minimum intensity at which a stimulus is perceived
as painful, did not differ in athletes and normal controls, according
to findings by researchers at the University of Heidelburg, Germany.
Dr Jonas Tesarz and a team of investigators, writing in the June edition of PAIN, conducted a meta-analysis of 15 studies, all of which evaluated experimentally-induced pain threshold or tolerance in athletes compared to normally active controls.
“Our analysis reveals that pain perception differs in athletes compared to normally active controls,” he said.
“Studies in athletes offer the opportunity for an evaluation of the physical and psychological effects of regular activity on pain perception, which might foster the development of effective types of exercise for relief in pain patients.”
There could be clinical implications in pain management strategies from the research because athletes were found to have consistently higher pain tolerance in comparison to normally active adults, although pain thresholds are affected more ambiguously.
The studies included a total of 568 athletes and 331 normally active controls and examined endurance sports, game sports, and strength sports. Twelve of them reported on pain tolerance, and nine studies examined pain threshold.
“Numerous studies of the effect of physical exercise in pain patients demonstrate a consistent impact on quality of life and functioning without an improvement in pain scores,” says Dr Tesarz.
“It may be advisable in exercise treatment for pain patients to focus on the development of their pain-coping skills that would affect tolerance, rather than the direct alleviation of pain threshold.
“The observation that pain perception is modifiable by physical activity provides promise for the use of non-invasive methods with few side effects for patients with chronic pain conditions.”
He called for further research to clarify the relationship between physical activity and modifications in pain perception.
Tags: Europe | Fitness | Pain Relief
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