Boston—For joint replacement patients, cognitive therapy (CT) via Skype to mitigate catastrophizing is almost as effective as in-person therapy, according to a poster presented at the 2017 meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (abstract A4153).
People who catastrophize—that is, who view their likely outcomes pessimistically—are more likely to have persistent postsurgical pain after an otherwise successful knee replacement surgery, according to the poster. From