| Summary: | 碩士 === 中國醫藥大學 === 物理治療學系復健科學碩士班 === 101 === Post-thoracotomy pain is a clinically problem that physical therapists often need to consider their interventions. Pain may affect patients'' coughing and deep breathing, and that may become more difficult for patients to carry out the rehabilitation program. Besides, rib-retractor used in thoracotomy, which makes compression and damage intercostal nerves when opening a chest, may cause neuropathic pain. Pain problems affected patients'' life and kept for several months even in years. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in clinical practice has been widely used in a variety of pain control. In previous studies, TENS treatment must be remain of drug intervention because it cannot inhibit pain completely. Diphenhydramine is one kind of antihistamines, antitussives, anti-emetics, and sedatives. The previous study has shown that diphenhydramine not only works like a local anesthetic but also produces spinal anesthesia and skin infiltrative anesthesia. Furthermore, diphenhydramine is a sodium channel blocker, and sodium channels play an important role in neuropathic pain. In this study, the effects of TENS and diphenhydramine on post-thoracotomy pain were tested in rats. The results indicated that either high-frequency and low-frequency TENS on the contralateral side or diphenhydramine in appropriate concentration can effectively improve thoracotomy pain; whereas the combined therapy (TENS + diphenhydramine) enhanced the onset of analgesic effect. We try to supply more options to manage post-thoracotomy pain after our experiments.
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