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Should placebo be used routinely for chronic pain in older people?

Overview of attention for article published in Maturitas, September 2014
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (95th percentile)

Mentioned by

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5 news outlets
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10 X users

Citations

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5 Dimensions

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61 Mendeley
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Title
Should placebo be used routinely for chronic pain in older people?
Published in
Maturitas, September 2014
DOI 10.1016/j.maturitas.2014.09.006
Pubmed ID
Authors

Steven M. Savvas, Leah M. Zelencich, Stephen J. Gibson

Abstract

As research expands our understanding of underlying placebo mechanisms, interest turns to the clinical application of placebos. Whether placebos are appropriate and effective in the management of chronic pain in older people deserves considerable attention. The evidence suggests that adults of any age are responsive to placebos, and that placebo treatments can be effective for many conditions prevalent in older people. Though placebos in general already seem to be used with some regularity in medical practice, the use of placebos alone for chronic pain is probably unjustified unless other treatments are inadvisable or have been exhausted. However maximising the mechanisms that underpin placebo analgesia such as expectancy or the psychosocial context should be encouraged and would be considered a feature of good clinical practice. It would also be anticipated that older people may see an additional benefit with placebo treatments when such treatments reduce existing or planned medication regimes, as older people typically experience more comorbidities, increased susceptibility to adverse drug reactions, and altered pharmacological responses to drugs. Further research is still needed in placebo-related treatment paradigms for the management of chronic pain in older people.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 10 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 61 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Germany 2 3%
Unknown 59 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 15 25%
Student > Ph. D. Student 7 11%
Student > Master 6 10%
Researcher 6 10%
Other 3 5%
Other 10 16%
Unknown 14 23%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 16 26%
Psychology 10 16%
Nursing and Health Professions 9 15%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 3 5%
Unspecified 1 2%
Other 6 10%
Unknown 16 26%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 49. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 August 2015.
All research outputs
#851,484
of 25,374,647 outputs
Outputs from Maturitas
#112
of 2,809 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,946
of 264,653 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Maturitas
#2
of 48 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,374,647 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,809 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 264,653 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 48 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.