Assessment of Pressure Pain Threshold (PPT) and Conditioned Pain Modulation (CPM) After Effect in Patients With and Without Tennis Elbow (TE)
This study at Hashemite University looks at how people with and without tennis elbow (AKA lateral elbow tendinopathy) feel pressure pain and how their bodies briefly turn down pain after a cold stimulus. Participants complete brief questionnaires (basic demographics without names, a tennis-elbow symptom form, and a physical-activity form) and then have their pressure-pain threshold (PPT) tested with a handheld device that slowly increases pressure on standard spots near the elbow and wrist; they say when it first becomes painful. To test the body's built-in anti-pain system (conditioned pain modulation, CPM), one hand is placed in ice water (the cold-pressor task) and PPT is measured again at set times (before, during, and after the cold stimulus) to see how much pain sensitivity changes and how long that change lasts. Both PPT reliability and CPM after effect are measured in this study. The study findings may help improve future assessment and treatment of musculoskeletal pain conditions.
⁃ Patients with Tennis Elbow confirmed at initial assessment by the Primary Investigator (PI)
⁃ Unilateral elbow pain \> 6 weeks duration reproduced on at least two of the following tests:
• Palpation of the lateral epicondyle
• Isometric testing of the wrist extensors
• Middle finger extension test
• Passive stretch of wrist extensors
• Resisted hand gripping using a dynamometer
• Upper limb neurodynamic test-radial nerve bias (ULNDT-RN)