Quantitative Point-of-Care Autonomic and Sensory Measurement System for Next-Generation Pain Management

Arbor Medical Innovations, Llc, Ypsilanti MI

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Abstract

ABSTRACT Chronic pain is a highly prevalent condition that affects approximately 20% of the population in the developed world. In spite of advances in pain management over the past decades, chronic pain remains a significant problem for many patients who experience unsatisfactory relief with commonly used treatments. Traditionally, clinicians have relied on the patient self-reporting their pain as the gold standard for diagnoses and evaluation of analgesic efficacy. However, the limitations of patient self-report for these purposes is one of the reasons management of chronic pain is a source of frustration to both patients and providers. AMI in collaboration with the University of Michigan (UM) and Medasense Biometrics, proposes this SBIR Phase I application to develop and evaluate the feasibility of a device for providing quantitative and accurate pain measurements that do not rely on self-report. The proposed system features a clinical-grade, dual stimulation/monitoring system that enables the parallel acquisition of perceptual and autonomic responses to painful stimuli. This system is based on the integration of two successful technologies that a) present standardized pain stimuli and b) monitor autonomic/physiological responses to pain. AMI?s current quantitative sensory testing (QST) system (referred to as the ?MAST?) was designed for research applications and requires optimization of the user interface for point-of-care use. It also relies solely on subjective responses to measure pain sensitivity. We will address these weaknesses by developing an integrated system, with a streamlined graphical user interface, that combines the MAST (standardized stimuli) and Medasense (physiological pain response) systems. We will then go on to evaluate the integrated system in the context of a clinically relevant chronic pain condition using an NIH-funded Specialized Center at the University of Michigan. This parent project already includes extensive QST and presents a perfect opportunity to generate proof-of-concept evidence that our prototype provides an objective measure of pain sensitivity with clinical utility.