By 85, people are definitely frail from the effects of aging. Seventy-five may be a more appropriate age for the medical definition of elderly, at least in economically developed nations. 1 Population-based studies show that 25 to 50 percent of noninstitutionalized elderly have significant pain problems. Estimates of pain in nursing home residents range from 45 to 80 percent. 1 Painful conditions such as arthritis affect over 80 percent, with two-thirds experiencing significant pain.
Cancer is more common in the elderly.
At least 80 percent will have significant pain when the disease is advanced. Two percent of people in their 20s go on develop chronic, painful post-herpetic neuralgia, but the rate rises to over 40 percent for people over 70, and the condition is a cause of suicide among the elderly. 2 Effects of aging The normal aging process changes healthy adults into frail people with little physiologic reserve and an increased vulnerability to the side effects of treatment and to disease and death. The cells of older people change in appearance and function. In the spinal cord dorsal horn, where pain fibers synapse, there are fewer drug receptors and less affinity for drugs at these receptor sites.