Can subjective pain be inferred from objective physiological data? Evidence from patients with sickle cell disease.

Patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) experience lifelong struggles with both chronic and acute pain, often requiring medical interventMaion. Pain can be managed with medications, but dosages must balance the goal of pain mitigation against the risks of tolerance, addiction and other adverse effec...

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Main Authors: Mark J Panaggio, Daniel M Abrams, Fan Yang, Tanvi Banerjee, Nirmish R Shah
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021-03-01
Series:PLoS Computational Biology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008542
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author Mark J Panaggio
Daniel M Abrams
Fan Yang
Tanvi Banerjee
Nirmish R Shah
author_facet Mark J Panaggio
Daniel M Abrams
Fan Yang
Tanvi Banerjee
Nirmish R Shah
author_sort Mark J Panaggio
collection DOAJ
description Patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) experience lifelong struggles with both chronic and acute pain, often requiring medical interventMaion. Pain can be managed with medications, but dosages must balance the goal of pain mitigation against the risks of tolerance, addiction and other adverse effects. Setting appropriate dosages requires knowledge of a patient's subjective pain, but collecting pain reports from patients can be difficult for clinicians and disruptive for patients, and is only possible when patients are awake and communicative. Here we investigate methods for estimating SCD patients' pain levels indirectly using vital signs that are routinely collected and documented in medical records. Using machine learning, we develop both sequential and non-sequential probabilistic models that can be used to infer pain levels or changes in pain from sequences of these physiological measures. We demonstrate that these models outperform null models and that objective physiological data can be used to inform estimates for subjective pain.
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spelling doaj.art-f7efe4a068224b61891d0ec406aed44c2022-12-21T19:21:49ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Computational Biology1553-734X1553-73582021-03-01173e100854210.1371/journal.pcbi.1008542Can subjective pain be inferred from objective physiological data? Evidence from patients with sickle cell disease.Mark J PanaggioDaniel M AbramsFan YangTanvi BanerjeeNirmish R ShahPatients with sickle cell disease (SCD) experience lifelong struggles with both chronic and acute pain, often requiring medical interventMaion. Pain can be managed with medications, but dosages must balance the goal of pain mitigation against the risks of tolerance, addiction and other adverse effects. Setting appropriate dosages requires knowledge of a patient's subjective pain, but collecting pain reports from patients can be difficult for clinicians and disruptive for patients, and is only possible when patients are awake and communicative. Here we investigate methods for estimating SCD patients' pain levels indirectly using vital signs that are routinely collected and documented in medical records. Using machine learning, we develop both sequential and non-sequential probabilistic models that can be used to infer pain levels or changes in pain from sequences of these physiological measures. We demonstrate that these models outperform null models and that objective physiological data can be used to inform estimates for subjective pain.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008542
spellingShingle Mark J Panaggio
Daniel M Abrams
Fan Yang
Tanvi Banerjee
Nirmish R Shah
Can subjective pain be inferred from objective physiological data? Evidence from patients with sickle cell disease.
PLoS Computational Biology
title Can subjective pain be inferred from objective physiological data? Evidence from patients with sickle cell disease.
title_full Can subjective pain be inferred from objective physiological data? Evidence from patients with sickle cell disease.
title_fullStr Can subjective pain be inferred from objective physiological data? Evidence from patients with sickle cell disease.
title_full_unstemmed Can subjective pain be inferred from objective physiological data? Evidence from patients with sickle cell disease.
title_short Can subjective pain be inferred from objective physiological data? Evidence from patients with sickle cell disease.
title_sort can subjective pain be inferred from objective physiological data evidence from patients with sickle cell disease
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008542
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