Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Somatosensory rehabilitation of pain (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 10:11, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Somatosensory rehabilitation of pain
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This article was previously proposed for deletion on the basis that there wasn't a peer reviewed trial. Whilst that is not a good reason in its own right, there are a lack of appropriate sources for this technique. No textbooks in the field of pain management describe the technique, no sources from people who are not the article's author support the existence/common practice of the technique. Several of the claims are dubious or pseudoscientific, wikipedia seems to be a major outlet for the spread of the beliefs with no independent outlets. The main author of the page previously tagged each medical entry in neuropathic pain and created a host of other unreliable content with this dubious medical practice. The article describes original research and none has been removed over 9 years since the first objections raised about the page. PainProf (talk) 17:28, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete This article is PROMO for one of its main editors whose activities here and whose user page also seem inapproriate to Wikipedia policy. Spicher has created an article about a therapy he developed and named but MEDRS have no information about it. A search of PubMed for somatosensory + Spicher turns up 6 papers, 5 of them co-authored by Spicher. The sixth paper Nedelec et al. 2016 describes using the method for an uncontrolled study of 17 burn survivors. Where are the independent secondary or tertiary sources that WP:MEDRS requires? The Nature Reviews Disease Primers (2017) survey article on treatment of neuropathic pain does not mention this technique or cite Claude Spicher. This topic has not "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Wikipedia should not be promoting this theory. Pinging  and  who have also tried to improve the article. HouseOfChange (talk) 02:25, 10 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Peer-reviewed open-access Official e-Journal of the Somatosensory Rehabilitation of Pain Network

Peer-reviewed open-access Official e-Journal of the Somatosensory Rehabilitation of Pain Network http://www.neuropain.ch/research/e-news The somatosensory Rehabilitation of Pain Network is a non-profit association.

The 64 issues of the past 17 years were written by some of the best experts in the world about neuropathic pain: Prof Bernadette NEDELEC, PhD, McGill University, Montreal, (Qc), Canada School of Physical and Occupational Therapy Prof David LE BRETON, Professeur de sociologie à l’université de Strasbourg. Membre de l’Institut Universitaire de France et de l’Institut des études avancées de l’Université de Strasbourg (USIAS : University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Studies) Prof Joseph-Omer DYER,PhD, pht, University of Montreal, Montreal, (Qc), Canada Faculty of Medicine, Rehabilitation School, Physiotherapy Program, Alpert Prof Marshall Devor, PhD, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) Professor & Chair Department of Cell & Animal Biology, etc.
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This e-Journal is on the website of the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) http://blog.unifr.ch/e-NewsSomatosensoryRehabilitation/

Since 2012, this is a peer-reviewd e-Journal with an international editorial board.

It is written in English and in 29 others foreign languages.

This is neither an advertisement nor a promotion. Spicherc (talk) 16:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Update: the article's talk page now has quite a few keep !votes. HouseOfChange (talk) 20:43, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Health and fitness-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 13:33, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 13:33, 9 June 2020 (UTC)


 * KEEP This article is currently a work in progress. Many certified therapists of pain are trying to improve it at the moment so it can be clear and helpful for patients suffering from neuropathic pain while respecting the Wikipedia policy in the meantime.

You mention the lack of secondary sources. Here are two articles that could help you understand the method while respecting MEDRS.

CSTP.SB (talk) 00:54, 11 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Scientific review articles conducted by groups without COI are the secondary sources we need. The Bouchard article above is promotional material published by ENewsSomatosens, an online blog promoting the therapy whose editor in chief is Spicher. The Morier article describes one clinical group's success with the "Spicher method" which it describes as "internationally renowned," no doubt because Wikipedia has for more than a decade permitted this promotional article to exist, despite lack of scientific backing or even scrutiny for the method. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:02, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

KEEP Medicine, surgery and rehabilitation are not hard science. In Europe, we are stil using the expression lega artis when we are describing the results of the clinical examination signs. In 1996, Sackett in the British Journal of Medicine (BMJ) from the University of Oxford proposed the evidence-based medicine. In 2020, a concensus consider this scale as the best manner to assess the quality of a treatment. To treat Complex regional pain syndrome's patients, the use of somatosensory rehabilitation of pain got a level 2c of evidence (Packham et al., J Hand Ther 2018). This study in clinical practice (Cohen's index = 1.64) was a part of her PhD Thesis https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/20621/2/packham_tara_l_201609_PhD.pdf. The director of this thesis was Prof Joy McDermid https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joy_Macdermid. She is as well the Editor-in-Chief ot the journal of the American society for Hand Therapy https://www.jhandtherapy.org/ Motor imagery is another program to treat this patient. Quintal, I., Poiré-Hamel, L., Bourbonnais, D., & Dyer, J.-O. (2018). Management of long-term complex regional pain syndrome with allodynia: A case report. Journal of Hand Therapy, 31(2), 255-264. doi:10.1016/j.jht.2018.01.012 proposed a treatment with both of them Spicherc (talk) 12:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I think it is important to point out that the consensus is that 2c refers to the level of evidence that can be obtained from the study, it does not mean the study is high quality. Secondly, 2c refers to one the study itself not the therapy, it does not mean that this therapy now has strong evidence it means you have a chart review and case studies. Regardless it is a primary source. Therefore claims should not be made about efficacy in the article. Realistically, there is little-no evidence of the efficacy of this method. Finally, it appears the author misinterpreted the scale, there is no control group in the study, so the study is an actual fact an uncontrolled case series, this would give level 4 evidence on a 5 point scale. Some of the comments on the article page have made me further realise the article as present is exceptionally problematic, one therapist said the article is important because it helps patients get in touch with people who can help. Either way the author has not demonstrated substantial coverage in sources that meet the strict definitions of medical sources on wikipedia, whilst it is possible that it will meet this standard in the future, it doesn't at present because the sources don't exist. If there is substantial coverage by many unrelated authors either negatively or positively this could merit an article. PainProf (talk) 13:58, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

FAKENEWS PainProf, how can you, alone, pretend to know better the evidence-based medicine than, all of these experts of this topic: Prof Joy McDermid, PhD, PT (McMaster University - Canada), Susan Michlovitz, PhD, PT, Norman Buckley, MD FRCP (Mickael DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care – Canada), Prof Tara Packham, PhD, OT (McMaster University) and the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Hand Therapy and Eve Chaput, pht, MClSc (Manipulative Physiotherapy), FCAMPT, BSc (Physiotherapy), BSc (Speech-therapy), lecture (University of Montreal - Canada), Prof Joseph Omer Dyer, PhD, PT (University of Montreal), Prof Sibele de Andrade Mel Knaut (Phd, PT (UNICENTRO, Brazil), Giorgio Pietramaggiori, MD, PhD (Universities of Lausanne – Switzerland - and Padova - Italy) and the anonymous reviewers of e-News Somatosens Rehab and the scientific comittees and the whole participants of several congresses (Paris, Montpellier, Osaka), where these informations have been communicated without any controverse. Conclusion: Level of evidence-based practice to treat CRPS's patients: 2c Spicherc (talk) 11:24, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * One PhD thesis whose dedication fulsomely thanks Spicher as "Thank you to Claude Spicher, teacher and trailblazer" is not evidence of independent third-party scrutiny of this medical treatment. Neither is the existence of a website run by Claude Spicher and devoted to articles that praise and promote his method. Let me also point to the userpage of Claude Spicher which promotes him and his therapy and then says "I report no conflict of interest." HouseOfChange (talk) 16:56, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Congratulations HouseOfChange You have made more than 4,000 contributions to Wikipedia. However, I am not sure that this honorably gold medals gives you the autorization to accuse me of a conflict of interest. I assume my ressponsabilities. our daily activities in clinical practice with neuropathic patients are registered in a data base with the autorization of the Swiss Association of Research Ethics Committees https://swissethics.ch

Our community of pratice proposes informations to neuropathic patients who have much difficulties to survive - thir life have no colour anymore. Their first complain: restless nights for ages: months, years, even decades. I am an occupational therapist and in Switzerland, in the Netherlands, in Canada, in our rehabilitation field, we have the ability to choose the best NON-pharmacological treatment which corresponds the best to the patient and its values. We are NOT promoting this physical treatment. We are giving them the opportunity to interrupt their neuropathic pain. This method is NOT the Spicher's method at all. We are trying to build bridges between rehabilitation, medicine and neurosciences. For this reason some of my 54 co-authors are occupationnal therapists, physiotherapists, Medical Doctors (neurologists, surgeons, pain doctors, etc.), anatomists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, and so on. https://unifr.academia.edu/ClaudeJSPICHER Spicherc (talk) 15:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Dear Claude, it is best to to avoid ad hominem statements in general, I try my best to avoid them in all debates. I think HouseOfChange's point is that it could be perceived that you have a conflict of interest if you don't mind I cite here the ICMJE guidelines which I feel are fair in general. http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/author-responsibilities--conflicts-of-interest.html. I understand this might not be wikipedia's policy but I believe they are functionally similar, but I hope you understand that running/owning/operating a clinic, receiving book royalties or charging fees for the training of this technique can be perceived as a conflict of interest. I do notice that some of the links in the bibliography are to amazon pages. People could argue that this is an attempt to sell books on the topic, I do not know the specifics of your deal with the publisher, but it could be perceived that a motivation for the page is to sell these books. Similarly, linking to your own websites which have details for yourself, your training, etc could be perceived to have a financial motive to funnel patients to certain therapists or to advertise training. As you have published books, and a blog, and own/operate a clinic/training courses, there is a financial incentive for you. I would recommend you declare this as a conflict of interest, noting that this doesn't preclude you from editing, but should be allowed to be taken into account by other editors. Similarly, it is an important factor in this deletion discussion. I would similarly ask any editor who has received speaking fees, royalties or grants from the pharmaceutical industry to declare this so I do think it is a fair and collegial request. Cheers PainProf (talk) 16:23, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

You are too funny anonymous Professor-post-doctoral-in-philosophy-fellow, Dear fe·male, gosh, YOU are asking me to be “fair and collegial”? you are making me laugh.
 * fair and collegial

Boris Cyrulnik one of the most clever and alive man in the world wrote that: “a numeric relationship is impossible.”

The only one thing that you know about you is that you dislike the “foreign languages” and that you are a native English speaker. Are you a professor of philosophy from the Wales, are you a Scottish postdoctoral fellow in biomedicine, are you an unemployed person who never published any article apart from her·his thesis? No idea.

What we know is that, since May 20, you are trying to destroy a work of hundreds engaged clinicians. Why? What is your motivation? No idea. What our community of practice knows is that business is NOT the only value in the world. Do YOU really want to talk about money on wikipedia? Do you know that in Europe, especially in Switzerland, it would be considered very rude? In Europe, perhaps NOT in Australia, to swear the hand on the Bible, would be an unappropriate manner to say that: “I declare no conflict of interest”? However, I do it. I am working in several different Universities, and fortunately, I exactly know what a conflict of interest is. Dear anonymous Professor-post-doctoral-in-philosophy-fellow from New-Zealand, may I tell you, that in Europe, to publish in French a book cost a lots of money? Between the 3rd and the 4th edition of Somatosensory Rehabilitation of Pain in French, 40 members of our community worked very hard during five years. Some of us waked up at 5 a.m. some others went to bed after midnight. And, could you believe that, Dear anonymous Professor-post-doctoral-in-philosophy-fellow from British Columbia, they didn’t receive any dollars for this job. Nothing. What is their motivation? To decrease pain of the patients, that they are, anyway, obliged to welcome with attention, hours after hours, as clinician. These patients who are fighting NOT to suicide because they are not sleeping anymore for 10, 100, or even more than 1000 restless nights.

As I started with him, I will conclude, as well, with Boris Cyrulnik – who published about 30 books in a foreign language: “It is hard to say ‘no’ when one opposes a greater number. It is also critical as one finds himself in the role of the offender. By saying that the Earth is round, whilst we clearly see it is flat, we stand as a deviant, almost abnormal. The statement is considered profane if the inference conflicts with the Literature. He who could think such a thing should be burnt at the stake.” (Cyrulnik, 2016) קלוד ספישר~ Spicherc (talk) 20:02, 15 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Dear Claude, I think per WP policy remaining anonymous is not a problem. I disagree with the characterisation that I dislike foreign languages, I kindly ask that you withdraw that statement. I prefer not to make personal attacks, my comment is perhaps unclear and taken in the wrong way, I think there is a perception of a conflict of interest, sometimes this can be as important as a conflict of interest. Much in the same way a perception of underlying tissue damage can be just as important as underlying tissue damage. I in no way mean to say that you are not doing what you think is right, and indeed you might be helping lots of people, but we need the evidence. My personal belief is that even spending sufficient time with a patient, fully understanding their concerns can help, and even placebo treatment can be very powerful in relieving pain and we know that a treatment administered in the context of a therapist where there is really active involvement such as in acupuncture can be more effective than a placebo pill (but just as affective as sham acupuncture), this is really why I'm trying to push for the evidence here. And, I hope that however this goes, you are encouraged to find clinical collaborators to pursue independent RCT, comparing your treatment to a sham. Regardless, this is off topic and not a useful line of discussion, the most important thing for the article is to find independent sources and reviews. Here is what I have found for you for citations so far:


 * https://app.dimensions.ai/discover/publication?search_text=claude%20spicher&search_type=kws&search_field=full_search&and_facet_researcher=ur.014153021553.44&order=times_cited


 * I believe this only accounts for pubmed/medline. Could you please point us to more independent sources that cite your work.


 * Cheers,

PainProf (talk) 21:44, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   11:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete It can't be brought up to the standard of WP:MEDRS, and so it shouldn't exist. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:53, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per above, it's better not to have an article than to host promotional and scientifically unproven junk on wikipedia. buidhe 16:53, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Absolutely delete, WP is not the place for legitimizing a pain management method that has not been independently scrutinized by multiple recognized research bodies. A treatment whose claims for efficacy rely at all on curated patient testimonies is already dubious; if the method worked, it would be supported by positive (deidentified) patient treatment outcomes assessed through objective, pre-defined measures. These would ideally be demonstrated through RCTs conducted by disinterested researchers. I am not seeing evidence of this for SRP, and the fact that the primary means of reporting case studies is a self-published WordPress blog pretending to be an academic journal speaks volumes against its legitimacy. JoelleJay (talk) 17:33, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. Wikipedia is here to document what is considered significant by independent sources, not to establish the purported legitimacy of things that people want to be consaidered signficant. Guy (help!) 11:56, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Related articles

 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatosensory_rehabilitation_of_neuropathic_pain#Somatosensory_rehabilitation_of_neuropathic_pain duplicate article posted here by same editors can this be included in same discussion just created PainProf (talk) 15:00, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * That duplicate article has been PROD-ed. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:09, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: the PROD having been removed by the article creator, that article is now also at AfD: Articles for deletion/Somatosensory rehabilitation of neuropathic pain HouseOfChange (talk) 22:57, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Deleted per CSD#A10. Black Kite (talk) 01:09, 22 June 2020 (UTC)


 * In addition to creating this article (February 2011) Spicher and other SPAs created equivalents in fr-wiki (September 2009), pt-wiki, and es-wiki. I raised this deletion discussion also in fr-wiki, because that is Spicher's native language and I thought he might there produce some secondary or tertiary sources concerning this therapy -- preferably independent medical sources that support its validity (compared to control groups, placebo, or to other pain therapies) or at least coverage in-depth in independent RS. Such sources, even if in French, would support the existence of this article in en-wiki. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:09, 20 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.