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Book reviews Living Well with Arthritis: A Sourcebook for Understanding and Managing Your Arthritis Dianne Mosher, MD, Howard Stein, MD, and Gunnar Kraag, MD, Toronto, Canada: Penguin Books, Viking, 2002, 338 pages, price $29.00. There is no shortage of booklets on how to cope with arthritis and related conditions, but the appearance of this full-length book, written by Canadian experts, and directed to Canadian patients, will provide an important resource for all those suffering from, or treating, these disabling diseases. The 14 chapters are clearly written, and tables and illustrations, though few, are well designed. Some patients may be intimidated by the detailed scientific information provided, though this is, on the whole, clearly set out. The chapter on childhood arthritis can be especially recommended for its well thought out and straightforward presentation of a complex subject, in language most parents will find easy to follow. The topic of "Complementary Therapies", of passionate interest to patients, is dealt with in a chapter of 40 pages, where sympathy and scepticism are finely balanced. Other chapters cover the diagnostic varieties of rheumatic diseases and their management, with a helpful emphasis on the value of a team-based approach to therapy. There are also useful outlines of the role of surgery, diet, and exercise in the management of arthritic conditions, and excellent sections on sexuality, pregnancy, and disability. An appendix deals with genetics and the environment. A few comments might be considered in a second edition. The discussions of therapy in Chapters 1 and 7 show considerable reduplication. It would have been helpful to explain "DMARD" on its first text appearance; references to Raynaud's syndrome are only found under "Scleroderma", which might dismay patients with primary Raynaud's. Many of the conditions discussed in this book have no relation to joints. The extension of rheumatology to include non-arthritic musculoskeletal disorders is clearly described in Chapter 2, but it might be useful to consider a title that directs the potential purchaser to a range of conditions beyond diseases of joints. John Verrier Jones, BM, BCh, FRCP, FRCPC, former Head, Division of Rheumatology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Clinical Pain Management, 4 volume set. ASC Rice, C Warfield, D Justins, C Eccleston, editors. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2003, Price $499.50 (Can). This is an impressive set of 4 volumes dealing with the management of pain. Three volumes address acute, chronic, and cancer pain and the fourth discusses practical aspects of clinical management and clinical research. There are over 200 authors from 16 different countries, representing a broad range of disciplines dealing with different aspects of pain. The authors outline management strategies based on current standards of practice but also if available relying on evidence-based studies. They use a scoring system to indicate the quality of evidence available. As well, references of key primary papers and major review articles are highlighted in the indexes. As the editors point out Clinical Pain Management is a work complementary to the Textbook of Pain and focusses on principles of clinical management rather than laboratory research into pain. Nonetheless each volume has introductory chapters dealing with basic principals of the respective topic. These are followed by chapters covering specific aspects of pain management. Overall, Clinical Pain Management is a comprehensive coverage of the topic of pain management. Each chapter is well written. It will doubtless be a major reference text for any physician or health practitioner who deals with acute, chronic, or cancer pain. W. John Reynolds, MD, FRCPC, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, Canada. |