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Pain is not associated with cognitive decline in older adults: A four-year longitudinal study

Overview of attention for article published in Maturitas, July 2018
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Title
Pain is not associated with cognitive decline in older adults: A four-year longitudinal study
Published in
Maturitas, July 2018
DOI 10.1016/j.maturitas.2018.07.001
Pubmed ID
Authors

Nicola Veronese, Ai Koyanagi, Marco Solmi, Trevor Thompson, Stefania Maggi, Patricia Schofield, Christoph Mueller, Catharine R Gale, Cyrus Cooper, Brendon Stubbs

Abstract

The finding of a potential association between pain and cognitive decline is limited to a few cross-sectional studies with relatively samples. We therefore aimed to investigate whether the presence and severity of pain at baseline could predict a decline in cognitive function over four years of follow-up in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. At baseline, participants with no dementia who were "often troubled by pain" were considered to have pain. Pain severity was categorized as mild, moderate, or severe. Cognitive function was explored through verbal fluency (assessed by asking how many different animals the participants could name in 60 s), memory (sum of immediate and delayed verbal memory) and processing speed (number of target letters correctly identified on the letter cancellation task). Multivariable linear regression was used (exposure: pain; outcomes: cognitive change between follow-up and baseline, based on standardized residuals). Altogether, 6515 community-dwelling people with a mean age of 65 years (women = 57.3%) were included. Over a 4-year follow-up, after adjusting for 26 potential confounders, no association between pain (yes vs. no) and verbal fluency (beta = 0.02; 95%CI: -0.15 to 0.18), memory (0.05; 95%CI: -0.28 to 0.38), or processing speed (0.55; 95%CI: -18.4 to 2.93) at follow-up was found. Only severe pain was associated with greater decline in memory (-0.36; 95%CI: -0.68 to -0.04). In conclusion, in older people, pain was not associated with worsening in cognition, except for severe pain, which was marginally associated with worsening in memory tests. Further longitudinal studies are needed to confirm or refute our findings.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 84 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 84 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 11%
Researcher 9 11%
Student > Master 8 10%
Student > Bachelor 8 10%
Professor 4 5%
Other 12 14%
Unknown 34 40%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 14 17%
Medicine and Dentistry 11 13%
Psychology 8 10%
Neuroscience 4 5%
Social Sciences 4 5%
Other 6 7%
Unknown 37 44%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 October 2018.
All research outputs
#14,920,631
of 25,385,509 outputs
Outputs from Maturitas
#1,777
of 2,811 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#176,918
of 341,301 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Maturitas
#25
of 46 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,385,509 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 40th percentile – i.e., 40% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,811 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.4. This one is in the 35th percentile – i.e., 35% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 341,301 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 47th percentile – i.e., 47% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 46 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 45th percentile – i.e., 45% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.