Effect of pain neuroscience education and dry needling on chronic elbow pain as a result of cyberchondria: a case report
Abstract
This case report describes a 31-year-old male who presented with complaints of chronic pain in his right elbow. Detailed subjective examination revealed that the patient had searched Google for extensive online information relating to his pain, ultimately self-labeling with various diagnoses. After researching in YouTube, the patient self-treated with ice, exercises, neural mobilization, self-massage and taping, all resulting in a failed outcome. Clinical findings revealed trigger points in his right brachioradialis muscle with added symptoms of central pain. This is a potential first-time description of physical therapy management of brachioradialis myofascial pain syndrome with superadded central pain caused as a result of cyberchondria where the patient used the Internet for arriving at a wrong self-diagnosis and incorrect self-treatment with failed or worsening pain outcomes leading to pain sustenance or chronicity. Physical therapy consisted of Pain Neuroscience Education, dry needling and exercise therapy. The patient was completely pain free and fully functional at the end of the sixth session, which was maintained at a one-month follow-up.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Various exploratory studies have found a correlation between CSS and problematic usage of the Internet severity.
“Indeed, various exploratory studies have found a correlation between CSS and PUI severity [22,33,50,57].”
From Is cyberchondria a new transdiagnostic digital compulsive syndrome? A systematic review of the evidence (2020) · cites this paper as [33]
A positive correlation between cyberchondria and problematic usage of the Internet, unaccounted for age, gender, current medical status, negative affect, or health anxiety, was found (r = 0.59).
“In other studies, a positive correlation between CYB and PUI, unaccounted for age, gender, current medical status, negative affect, or health anxiety was found (r = 0.59) [33]”
From Is cyberchondria a new transdiagnostic digital compulsive syndrome? A systematic review of the evidence (2020) · cites this paper as [33]
A further investigation did not confirm the association between anxiety sensitivity and cyberchondria, possibly because it accounted for the effects of a greater number of covariates than prior studies.
“Nonetheless, a further investigation [33] did not confirm these results, possibly because it accounted for the effects of a greater number of covariates than did the prior studies.”
From Is cyberchondria a new transdiagnostic digital compulsive syndrome? A systematic review of the evidence (2020) · cites this paper as [33]
In a cross-sectional study, a positive correlation between cyberchondria measured with the CSS and each of the three metacognitive beliefs was found.
“In a cross-sectional study, a positive correlation between CYB (measured with the CSS) and each of these three metacognitive beliefs was found [33].”
From Is cyberchondria a new transdiagnostic digital compulsive syndrome? A systematic review of the evidence (2020) · cites this paper as [33]
Other studies of the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and cyberchondria did not produce consistent results.
“However, other studies of the relationship between Intolerance of uncertainty and CYB (assessed with the CSS) did not produce consistent results [33,36,37]”
From Is cyberchondria a new transdiagnostic digital compulsive syndrome? A systematic review of the evidence (2020) · cites this paper as [33]
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 34 · Cited by 11
- Authors
- Anandkumar, S.
- Corresponding author
- Anandkumar, Sudarshan
- Venue
- Physiotherapy Theory and Practice
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2014-12-09
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 207-213
- ISSN
- 0959-3985 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-5040
- OpenAlex
- W2001043130
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 0.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Physiotherapy Theory and Practice (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cell Biology › Myofascial pain diagnosis and treatment
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitation
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine › Pain Management and Treatment
- Keywords
- cyberchondria, pain neuroscience education, dry needling, trigger points, central pain, self-diagnosis, self-medication, exercise therapy, pain chronification
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Elbow, Exercise Therapy, Humans, Male, Neurosciences, Patient Education as Topic, Somatoform Disorders, Internet, Chronic Pain, Myalgia
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
