Dementia Is Linked to Increased Pain Years Before Diagnosis

A study in Pain said people with dementia may experience higher levels of pain 16 years pre-diagnosis, reports the U.S. National Institute on Aging . Researchers looked at the timeline of the association between dementia and self-reported pain via analysis of data on subjects collected for up to 27 years. Out of 9,046 participants, 567 developed dementia over the observation period. Those diagnosed with dementia reported slightly greater pain as early as 16 years before diagnosis, driven mainly by differences in pain interference. They reported steadily worsening pain levels relative to those who were never diagnosed with dementia. At time of diagnosis, people with dementia reported substantially more pain than people without dementia. Because dementia-associated brain changes begin decades before diagnosis, it is doubtful that pain causes or increases dementia risk, but rather chronic pain might be an early sign of dementia or simply correlated with dementia.