Link between anxiety and depression and pain and sleep disruption

McBeth, John (2016) Link between anxiety and depression and pain and sleep disruption. In, Mental Health and Older People: A Guide for Primary Care Practitioners. Springer International Publishing AG, pp. 67-78. (doi:10.1007/978-3-319-29492-6_7).

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

Musculoskeletal pain is one of the most common complaints in adults aged 50 years and over with 66 % reporting pain in the past 4 weeks. Up to 90 % of all pain complaints in older people relate to the musculoskeletal system, and chronic musculoskeletal pain accounts for more than 12 % of all consultations to primary care in people aged over 50 years. Pain is often attributed to osteoarthritis and allied disorders of the musculoskeletal system. However, it has become clear that chronic pain may not necessarily represent disease of the joints: pain is not necessarily associated with advanced radiographic changes in joints in which the symptoms are located and the genetic factors that predispose to developing pain are independent of the genetic factors that predispose to developing osteoarthritis. Pain is the main cause of disability in later life. With population ageing, the contribution of pain to long-term disability will increase relative to that of other chronic diseases in the next 20 years. This chapter highlights how common pain is in older people and the relationship between pain, depression and anxiety; describes selected mechanisms that may explain those associations; and briefly discusses the primary care management of pain in older people.

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