BACKGROUND: Pain is recognized as a cognitive phenomenon, which involves the processing of information. Given that human information processing is largely restricted to a number of simultaneous tasks, many interventions and techniques have been used to modify pain perception by distracting the cognitive processing of pain. This study tested the hypothesis that the pain threshold to electrical stimuli is increased as a result of distraction using a ReliefBand^®.

METHODS: Twenty volunteers were enrolled in this study. After attaching surface electrode to the medial plantar nerve territory of left foot, electrical stimuli were delivered to obtain baseline pain threshold and temporal summation threshold. After 15 minutes, while distracting with ReliefBand^®, the same parameters were obtained.

RESULTS: Pain threshold and temporal summation threshold before distraction were 7.9±2.2 mA and 7.0±2.1 mA respectively. During distraction pain threshold and temporal summation threshold were increased to 9.0±2.4 mA and 7.8±2.2 mA respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: Pain and temporal summation threshold to electrical stimuli were increased during distraction with ReliefBand^®. Although we applied a technique with weak distracting ability, this distracted the processing of pain perception significantly. Further research about various distraction technique will be required.