Musculoskeletal pain complaints and performance on cognitive tasks over the adult life span.
The present study aimed at comparing participants with and without self reported musculoskeletal pain in a normal population with regard to performance on a range of tests for episodic memory, semantic memory, and other cognitive functions and to see if expected differences interacted with age. The results showed that participants with pain performed worse on a range of tasks as compared to participants without pain, and that these differences occurred regardless of age. The most robust effects of pain were displayed on tests for vocabulary and construction ability as these were the only effects that remained significant after controlling for years of education and reported depression in separate analyses. When depression and education were controlled for in the same analysis, even these effects were eliminated, suggesting interplay between pain, depressive status, and educational level in the negative effects on cognitive functioning.
Söderfjell
Stefan
S
Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Sweden. stefan.soderfjell@psy.umu.se
Molander
Bo
B
Johansson
Håkan
H
Barnekow-Bergkvist
Margareta
M
Nilsson
Lars-Göran
LG
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009141:Musculoskeletal System / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010146:Pain / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012660:Semantics; D012720:Severity of Illness Index