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Cardiovascular risk factors in cognitively impaired nursing home patients: A relationship with pain?
Author(s) -
Achterberg W.P.,
Scherder E.,
Pot A.M.,
Ribbe M.W.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
european journal of pain
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.305
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1532-2149
pISSN - 1090-3801
DOI - 10.1016/j.ejpain.2006.10.006
Subject(s) - diabetes mellitus , medicine , dementia , depression (economics) , logistic regression , odds ratio , disease , vascular dementia , physical therapy , endocrinology , economics , macroeconomics
Cardiovascular risk factors (CRF) such as hypertension and diabetes mellitus favour the development of both vascular dementia (VaD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). The resulting deafferentation may increase the experience of pain in VaD and in AD. The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between CRF and pain in a sample of 107 cognitively impaired nursing home patients who had also a chronic pain condition. The prevalence of pain in patients with hypertension or diabetes mellitus was higher (25/41 = 61% of them had pain) than those without diabetes or hypertension (of whom 24/66 = 36.4% had pain, p = 0.017). In a multivariate logistic regression model (adjusted for gender, age and depression) the presence of diabetes or hypertension was a risk indicator for pain: odds ratio: 3.48, p = 0.005, 95% CI: 1.45–8.38. This finding supports the hypothesis that as a result of CRF, disruptions of cortico–cortico and cortico–subcortical pathways occur, and consequently, enhances pain in this group of patients.