The authors of a recent study published in Pain examined whether older adults “with musculoskeletal pain conditions have increased sensitivity to physical activity (SPA) and respond to activities of stable intensity with increasingly severe pain.” The authors enrolled 107 older adults with chronic knee osteoarthritis who completed self-report measures of pain, function, and psychological factors, and performed a 6-min walk test. The authors found that “pain was a significant predictor of SPA among older adults and that SPA mediated the relationship between pain and physical function.”
