Pilot Study 2: Study of Arthritis Chronic Pain Using Animal Models

Chronic diseases such as diabetic neuropathy, arthritis, or the joint-pain episodes of sickle cell anemia, afflict disproportionately rural elderly and rural minority populations and are vehicles of severe chronic pain. Life-style patterns within these populations are known to be a major contributor to their persistent chronic pain. As a coping and ameliorative strategy for these ailments, life style changes have economic and medical advantages over pharmacological palliation. This pilot project aims to provide a basic-science resource for professionals serving such groups, through studies of palliative and preventative life-style effects on chronic pain in animal models. Such models are vital to addressing these questions, since parallel human studies for obvious ethical reasons are not possible. The health benefits of this work stem from the likelihood of establishing nutritional or other environmental factors to be applied in multi-factorial approaches to ameliorating chronic pain due to healthcare disparities. (Ian Hentall PhD, Principal Investigator)

 

 

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