Past Online Articles Create username. Chronic pain is generally persistent and not amenable to routine pain control.
Chronic pain is often devastating to older adults' overall health and quality of life.
It diminishes their ability and willingness to perform functional activities, exercise and engage in social activities. It can also increase stress, delay healing, interfere with sleep, decrease appetite and cause psychological and emotional problems such as depression, low self-efficacy and decreased motivation. Despite its prevalence, pain is often poorly evaluated and under-treated in older adults. Patient-related barriers include sensory impairments, impaired cognition, multiple medical problems making pain seem less significant, assumptions that pain is a normal part of aging, fear of invasive testing to evaluate pain, fear of side effects and addiction to pain medications. The most accurate assessment of pain and its intensity is based on patients' self-reports.