Assessment of Pressure Pain Threshold (PPT) and Conditioned Pain Modulation (CPM) After Effect in Patients With and Without Tennis Elbow (TE)

This study at Hashemite University looks at how people with and without tennis elbow (AKA lateral elbow tendinopathy) feel pressure pain and how their bodies briefly "turn down" pain after a cold stimulus. Participants complete brief questionnaires (basic demographics without names, a tennis-elbow symptom form, and a physical-activity form) and then have their pressure-pain threshold (PPT) tested with a handheld device that slowly increases pressure on standard spots near the elbow and wrist; they say when it first becomes painful. To test the body's built-in anti-pain system (conditioned pain modulation, CPM), one hand is placed in ice water (the cold-pressor task) and PPT is measured again at set times (before, during, and after the cold stimulus) to see how much pain sensitivity changes and how long that change lasts. Both PPT reliability and CPM after effect are measured in this study. The study findings may help improve future assessment and treatment of musculoskeletal pain conditions.

This is a quasi-experimental reliability and time-course study using digital algometry for PPT and the cold-pressor task for CPM. Primary outcomes include PPT reliability (with intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), standard error of measurement (SEM), and smallest detectable change (SDC) and the duration of CPM after-effects (time to return toward baseline). Testing is planned in the Physiotherapy Clinic at the Community Rehabilitation Center, with a minimum sample noted in the application. The protocol emphasizes standardized sites, repeated measures at predefined time points, and storage of coded data on university systems.