Presented at the 2012 AAPM Annual Meeting « Back

Activities of Daily Living with Spinal Cord Stimulation in Patients with Chronic Neuropathic Pain

Lilly Chen, MS, lilly.chen@bsci.com¹, Lee T. Snook, MD², Kerry Bradley, MS¹, Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov, PhD¹, Sally Kimbrell, MS², Bryan R. Boroski, BA³, Anthony S. Pineda, MPH CPHQ⁴, (1) Boston Scientific, Valencia, California, (2) MPMC, Sacramento, California, (3) Metropolitan Pain Management Consultants, Sacramento, California, (4) N/A, Sacramento, California

Introduction: Pain is a multidimensional subjective experience and has profound effects on a patient’s health and quality of life. Patients with chronic pain often report difficulties with physical activity and therefore find standard activities of daily living (ADL) a significant challenge. Materials and Methods: This study is a retrospective consecutive case series of physical activity levels in chronic pain patients treated with the Boston Scientific PrecisionTM SCS system at our clinic from 2008 to 2011. ADL measures included food preparation, hygiene performance, toileting, reading, writing, and speaking. Additionally, sleep patterns and physical activity were collected as well. Results: A total of 37 patients were included in this study (18M/19F, Age 55.8±10.9). SCS patients reported normal daily functioning in four of the six ADL measures: 1) food preparation and self-feeding, 2) hygiene performance and toileting, 3) reading, and 4) speech. In addition, the mean number of sleep hours per 24-hour period (7.4± 2.3) was statistically equivalent to normal sleep patterns of 8 hours (P = 0.1163). Finally, a statistically significant number of patients (n = 19) reported ability to participate in moderate physical activity (P = 0.02). Conclusion: Our retrospective consecutive case series found that our chronic pain patients treated with the Boston Scientific PrecisionTM SCS system reported normal performance levels across several measures of ADL, as well as normal sleep patterns, and majority of patients can perform moderate physical activity. Further prospective study is recommended to systematically study the effects of SCS treatment patients’ ADL.

Funding: None