Leave Spouse Alone During Back-Pain

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Leave Spouse Alone During Back Pain

November 4, 2002 ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Paying too much attention to a spouse's back pain can make it worse, and leaving the spouse alone can make it better, according to a study presented by German psychologists.

Patients with back problems showed almost three times as much brain activity when their spouse was in the same room, but that activity dropped when the spouse left, according to research presented Sunday at the annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Heidelberg.

"It's as if the spouse has become a stimulating cue for the pain," said Herta Flor, the psychologist who ran the study.

In Flor's study, people with chronic back pain were split into two groups. In one, the pain victim was married to someone who responded to the discomfort with massages, medicine, and other attention.

In the other, partners downplayed the pain, sometimes leaving the room or distracting the person with other activities. Flor said that was the best course of action.

"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 found that untreated pain at birth may lead to lowered sensitivity to pain later in life.

In the study, 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.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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