Chronic Pain in the Elderly: Mechanisms and Perspectives

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 16:736688 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Chronic pain affects a large part of the population causing functional disability, being often associated with coexisting psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety, besides cognitive deficits, and sleep disturbance. The world elderly population has been growing over the last decades and the negative consequences of chronic pain for these individuals represent a current clinical challenge. The main painful complaints in the elderly are related to neurodegenerative and musculoskeletal conditions, peripheral vascular diseases, arthritis, and osteoarthritis, contributing toward poorly life quality, social isolation, impaired physical activity, and dependence to carry out daily activities. Organ dysfunction and other existing diseases can significantly affect the perception and responses to chronic pain in this group. It has been proposed that elderly people have an altered pain experience, with changes in pain processing mechanisms, which might be associated with the degeneration of circuits that modulate the descending inhibitory pathways of pain. Aging has also been linked to an increase in the pain threshold, a decline of painful sensations, and a decrease in pain tolerance. Still, elderly patients with chronic pain show an increased risk for dementia and cognitive impairment. The present review article is aimed to provide the state-of-art of pre-clinical and clinical research about chronic pain in elderly, emphasizing the altered mechanisms, comorbidities, challenges, and potential therapeutic alternatives.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,854

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Cognition and Pain: A Review.Tanvi Khera & Valluvan Rangasamy - 2021 - Frontiers in Psychology 12.
Chronic pain, compensation and clinical knowledge.George Mendelson - 1991 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 12 (3).
Using Pain, Living with Pain.Emma Sheppard - 2018 - Feminist Review 120 (1):54-69.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-04-10

Downloads
15 (#1,246,497)

6 months
6 (#901,624)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references