Talk:Analgesic adjuvant

Wiki Education assignment: WikiMed Fall 2023

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 October 2023 and 17 November 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Guo9810 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Guo9810 (talk) 22:43, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Over the course of this month, I plan to make the following edits to this page:

1. Update references to reflect more recent literature

2. Add a brief section to discuss situations when one might choose to include an adjuvant analgesic in a pain plan

3. Expand on each bullet in the list of compounds into its own section discussing mechanism of action (or proposed mechanisms) and indications/contraindications

4. Identify potential additions to the list of analgesic adjuvants

Guo9810 (talk) 16:41, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Guo9810, here is my peer review of your proposed changes. Overall, well done!

== Peer Review of Drafted Changes ==

Lead

• Concise and clear introductory paragraph that does not add any new information to the article
• Gives good summary

Content

• I know that you started from a stub article and were hoping to take it 1-2 steps higher in the grading scale. I think you have done a good job with the content itself in that it is complete and comprehensive. You have touched on all the major classes of analgesic adjuvant while remaining on-topic.
• Question: Is it true that all antidepressants act by modulating serotonin? I thought there were some dopamine/norepinephrine ones
• Note: The section on alpha-2 adrenergics is incomplete
• Note: I would try and define the words analgesia and adjuvants as separate words somewhere at the beginning of the article because you use the word analgesia independently at times and some readers might not know what that means.
• Note: Throughout the article, you have some incomplete sentences that say something like: "some controversy about xyz." I would recommend complete sentences, such as "there is controvery about xyz" or "experts disagree about xyz."

Tone and Balance

• I think that your overall tone is very descriptive about what is happening instead of persuasive, so well done. The article describes the approach and its goal clearly.

Sources and References

• Your sources and references are great.

Organization

• I love the organization into major classes of medication. Some of the organization under each of the subheadings is a little hard to follow.
  • For example, under "anticonvulsants" you list the mechanism of anticonvulsants, but the next bullet point is about neuropathic pain, then the topic returns to types of anticonvulsants in the next bullet.
  • My recommendation would be to talk about neuropathic pain elsewhere or to make it a sub-bullet to the previous sentence while mentioning it in the previous sentence
• I actually think that each of your subsections has enough information in the opening couple sentences that you do not need to bullet them. For example, the first two bullets under "antidepressants" could be a sort of short paragraph, then only use bullets for when you are listing things. I think that this would make the article flow more naturally.
• The rationale subheading is important, and I like that it is at the top

Images and Media

• n/a
• One feedback would be that you can include a diagram of pain transmission at the neuronal level to show how some of these medications are thought to work. I do not think this is essential, just something to think about.

Overall Feedback

• Overall I think you have done a great job, especially considering what you started with. I think that you have managed to elevate this article beyond its previous status. The content is comprehensive while not overly descriptive or jargon-laden.
• Main improvement that needs to be made is the organization and the bullet-listing.

Japown (talk) 23:09, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate the extra pair of eyes.

Content

• Question: Is it true that all antidepressants act by modulating serotonin? I thought there were some dopamine/norepinephrine ones. - I added norepinephrine to the bullet point introducing antidepressants -- the hypothesized mechanism(s) of action for antidepressants are primarily through serotonin, though the agents have effects on other receptors as well
• Note: The section on alpha-2 adrenergics is incomplete - I added more detail in that section
• Note: I would try and define the words analgesia and adjuvants as separate words somewhere at the beginning of the article because you use the word analgesia independently at times and some readers might not know what that means. - I added a clarification about pain control = analgesia in the first sentence
• Note: Throughout the article, you have some incomplete sentences that say something like: "some controversy about xyz." I would recommend complete sentences, such as "there is controvery about xyz" or "experts disagree about xyz." - Thanks! Reworded those sentences.

Organization

• I love the organization into major classes of medication. Some of the organization under each of the subheadings is a little hard to follow.
  • For example, under "anticonvulsants" you list the mechanism of anticonvulsants, but the next bullet point is about neuropathic pain, then the topic returns to types of anticonvulsants in the next bullet. - I edited the text to try to make it a bit more clear the connection between the general mechanism of anticonvulsants and parallels to neuropathic pain
  • My recommendation would be to talk about neuropathic pain elsewhere or to make it a sub-bullet to the previous sentence while mentioning it in the previous sentence
• I actually think that each of your subsections has enough information in the opening couple sentences that you do not need to bullet them. For example, the first two bullets under "antidepressants" could be a sort of short paragraph, then only use bullets for when you are listing things. I think that this would make the article flow more naturally. - I think this makes sense. I've reorganized all of the "information" bullet points into an introductory paragraph for each section

Images and Media

• One feedback would be that you can include a diagram of pain transmission at the neuronal level to show how some of these medications are thought to work. I do not think this is essential, just something to think about. - I thought about adding one, but there are some already on the pain physiology page, and I couldn't find an appropriate image that is more specific to these medications and easy to understand

Guo9810 (talk) 18:47, 16 November 2023 (UTC)