Effectiveness of nonclinic-based dual-task training on physical and cognitive functions and activities of daily living in older adults with cognitive decline: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Despite an increase in attention on the topic of ‘mixed pain’ (Leoni et al. ; Saracoglu et al. ; Varrassi et al. ), it remains a concept without a formal, accepted definition. This conceptual ambiguity translates into clinical uncertainty, as many patients with conditions such as low back pain, osteoarthritis, or cancer pain do not experience just one type of pain, as characterized by the mechanistic pain descriptors nociceptive, neuropathic, or nociplastic pain. Instead, they experience an overlap of these mechanistic pain descriptors, falling into the undefined categorization of having ‘mixed pain’ (Freynhagen et al. ). The absence of standardized terminology and defined criteria make it difficult to identify and appropriately manage patients living with these conditions, posing a clear challenge to clinical practice (Freynhagen et al. , ; Leoni et al. ). The understanding that these different mechanistic pain descriptors can exist in combination has to be clearly communicated to the pain community, so an easy‐to‐use definition is a prerequisite. Additionally, a lack of acceptance by larger regulatory bodies and scientific societies (IASP ; Freynhagen et al. ; Treede et al. ; Fernandez‐Fairen et al. ) contributes to the hurdles of harmonizing research on conditions with mixed pain, resulting in a lack of established clinical data in these patient populations. With an urgent unmet need to define mixed pain and a rapidly growing interest in this topic (Leoni et al. ; Saracoglu et al. ; Varrassi et al. ), the question still remains: ‘What is mixed pain?’