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PainNCT03692247

The Impact of Music Therapy on Nociceptive Processing

A study testing Smartphone-based Music Intervention in people with Pain and Chronic Pain, run by Brigham and Women's Hospital at 1 site in United States.

Completed

Finished. The study has ended and is not enrolling. Results may be posted on the official record.

Official record
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Trial summary

The purpose of this study is to understand the use of brief, personalized music interventions to decrease pain. Persisting and recurring pain is devastating to individuals and society. The worry and anxiety people feel while experiencing chronic pain may increase how much pain they feel. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 18 years and olderHealthy volunteers can take part
Conditions the study is for
Pain, Chronic Pain
What is being tested?
Smartphone-based Music Intervention
Could I receive a placebo?
No, everyone receives an active treatment
How many people
60 participants
Where
1 siteUnited States
Study dates
7 Jun 2018to 18 Jul 2018
Phase
Interventional
Are there results?
None posted in the registry

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 18 years and older
  • All sexes
  • Healthy volunteers accepted
  • Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • Over 18 years old
  • Able to sign English written consent
  • No history of chronic opioid use (have an opioid prescription more than 30 days).

Who cannot join

  • Under 18 years old
  • Non-English speaking
  • Unwilling to undergo quantitative sensory testing
  • Hearing loss
  • Diagnosis of neuropathy
  • History of chronic opioid use (having an opioid prescription more than 30 days).

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country.

United States1 site
  • Brigham and Women's Hospital

    Brookline, Massachusetts, 02115

Other trials in United States

About this study

Official title: Quantitative Sensory Testing in Response to Music Interventions

The purpose of this study is to understand the use of brief, personalized music interventions to decrease pain. Persisting and recurring pain is devastating to individuals and society. The worry and anxiety people feel while experiencing chronic pain may increase how much pain they feel. Enjoyable music feels good and affects brain chemicals in a way that can lessen feelings of pain. Music that feels good can also lower the anxiety and worry that accompany chronic pain which may play a role in the pain relief music provides.

Read the detailed description

Chronic pain is devastating to individuals and society. Individuals who experience chronic pain have poorer health outcomes, utilize increased healthcare resources and have higher rates of disability. At present, treatment of chronic pain is limited to behavioral interventions and pharmacologic interventions. Many individuals with chronic pain will use opioid analgesics at some point in the continuum of pain. Prolonged use of opioid analgesics--even for durations as short as 3 days puts individuals at risk for nonmedical opioid use, addiction, and may fuel transitions from oral opioids to heroin.

Outside of the original insult precipitating chronic pain, increasing evidence suggests that individual factors such as anxiety and catastrophizing are associated with development of chronic pain and increased painful response to stimuli. It is therefore suggestive that treating underlying causes of anxiety and catastrophizing may lead to novel adjunctive therapies to manage chronic pain.

Music is emotive and known to modulate affect. Music that "feels good" has been described to modulate the dopaminergic and serotonin reward pathways in the brain thereby improving positive affect. Improved affect counteracts negatively valenced affect like depression, anxiety, and catastrophizing, and may be able to modulate the individual response to pain. The purpose of this pilot study is to investigate the acceptability and feasibility of a smartphone-based app on healthy volunteers.

In order to measure the impact of the music app on individual responses to pain, the investigators will use quantitative sensory testing (QST) to induce a mild-moderate, standardized pain stimulus, and measure participants' pain in the absence and presence of this music intervention. The QST is a 10 minute session that includes a set of sensory tests, which elicit a mild to moderate painful response, including a pressure pain threshold and tolerance using a handheld digital algometer, the temporal summation of pain using a set of weighted pinprick probes, and immersing hand in cold water. Primary outcome will be the modulation of pain scores by music, and secondary outcomes will include the impact of music on anxiety and catastrophizing, using brief, validated questionnaires, and whether changes in these measures of affect mediate any impact on pain processing.

Conditions
Pain, Chronic Pain
Being tested
Smartphone-based Music Intervention
Keywords
pain, music
Medical subject headings
Pain, Chronic Pain

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • Smartphone-based Music InterventionOther

    The smartphone-based music intervention (Unwind) is a music protocol that gathers basic information from the patient including a 0-10 pain scale and 0-10 anxiety scale as well as recorded heart rate. Using these variables, a machine learning protocol pieces together a music intervention between 5-20 minutes long. The duration of the intervention can be controlled by the patient or experimenter. No identifying data is kept on the smartphone.

Study groups in NCT03692247
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Quantitative Sensory TestingOtherAfter answering brief questionnaires assessing psychosocial factors related to anxiety, catastrophizing, and pain, participants will undergo quantitative sensory tests where they will use a simple numeric rating scale (0-10) to rate pain and anxiety at several points during two QST sessions. During the second QST session, participants will use Unwind, a smartphone-based music intervention.
Receives: Other: Smartphone-based Music Intervention

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Changes in Pain Sensitivity in the Presence of Music

    Change in pain sensitivity, measured as a difference in the temporal summation of pain with a mechanical stimulus between a control and music condition of testing.

    Measured: 40 minutes

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted2 Oct 2018
  2. Study start7 Jun 2018
  3. Primary completion18 Jul 2018
  4. Study completion18 Jul 2018

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase N/A
Primary purpose
Other
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Model description
This is a cohort study of one group of 60 healthy volunteers without a diagnosis of neuropathy or chronic pain.
Masking
None (open label)
Enrolment
60 participants (actual)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT03692247
Sponsor's protocol ID
2017P002872
Status last verified
Jan 2019
First submitted
16 Jun 2018
Last updated
30 Jan 2019
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
No

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A study testing Smartphone-based Music Intervention in people with Pain and Chronic Pain, run by Brigham and Women's Hospital at 1 site in United States.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 3 inclusion and 6 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 30 Jan 2019. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

The study is completed, but results are not available in the source record. That does not mean the treatment did or did not work.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Changes in Pain Sensitivity in the Presence of Music (time frame: 40 minutes). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 30 Jan 2019.

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