Cognitive and sensorimotor function in participants being treated for trigeminal neuralgia pain

Abstract

Background

Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is an orofacial condition defined by reoccurring, spontaneous, short-lived but excruciating stabbing pain. Pharmacological interventions constitute the first-line treatment for TN, with antiepileptic drugs commonly prescribed. People treated for TN pain with antiepileptic drugs describe cognitive and motor difficulties affecting activities of daily living, and report poorer quality of life. We undertook the first comprehensive objective evaluation of sensorimotor and cognitive performance in participants being treated for TN pain with antiepileptic drugs relative to age-matched controls.

Methods

Participants (43 TN, 41 control) completed a battery of sensorimotor (steering, aiming and tracking) and cognitive (working memory, processing speed, inhibition) tasks.

Results

The TN group performed significantly worse than controls on the sensorimotor tracking and aiming tasks and across all cognitive measures.

Conclusions

The data explain why patients treated with antiepileptic drugs report impairment when conducting activities of daily living (given the need for cognitive and motor capability within most of these). The study is an important first step in: (i) ensuring there is adequate information on the impact of pharmacological treatment; (ii) identifying measures to determine optimal medication dosage and track change over time; (iii) creating an evidence base that could allow scientific justification of alternative pain treatment options for TN (e.g. the costs/benefits of surgery).

Metadata

Authors/Creators:	Coats, RO https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4415-408X Crossley, KL Conlin, N Wu, J https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6093-599X Zakrzewska, JM Phillips, N Mon-Williams, M Pavitt, S https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7447-440X
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Keywords:	Trigeminal neuralgia, Pain medication, Sensorimotor, Cognitive, Impairment
Dates:	Accepted: 30 June 2020 Published (online): 17 July 2020 Published: 17 July 2020
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Dentistry (Leeds) > Applied Health and Clinical Translation (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Publications
Date Deposited:	24 Jul 2020 15:40
Last Modified:	25 Jun 2023 22:21
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Nature
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1186/s10194-020-01156-9

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Cognitive and sensorimotor function in participants being treated for trigeminal neuralgia pain

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