Sensory focus, a new pain attenuation technique:A systematic review / 中华物理医学与康复杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To systematically summarize any demonstrated pain attenuation effect of sensory fo-cusing. Methods Reports of studies of the sensory focus technique published between January 2000 and January 2018 were retrieved from Pubmed, the Web of Science, and the Cochrane and CNKI databases. Only reports of ran-domized and controlled trials were included, and those where sensory focus was combined with other techniques were excluded. Results Nine trials were included. All of the reports concluded that the sensory focus approach, properly applied, can significantly attenuate sensations of pain. Those who could understand and gain command of sensory fo-cus and those who had less fear of pain gained a better effect, especially among males and teenagers. However, Per-sons with high level of catastrophic emotion cannot activate the non-emotional path of pain effectively. Unexpectedly, no effect of education level was observed. Conclusion The sensory focus technique can attenuate pain sensations and has potential to be applied in clinical practice.