The authors of a recent study published in Pain Medicine, “investigated if older adults with chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) are more sedentary than a group of similar age and sex without CMP, and possible contributory factors to this.” The study enrolled 286 community-dwelling older adults, with an equal proportion of participants with and without CMP. Participants completed surveys on falls rate, pain inventory, activities, fear of falling, and participation in physical activity. The authors found that “older adults with CMP spent approximately 3 ½ hours a day more being sedentary than the comparison group.” The authors concluded that “older adults with CMP are significantly more sedentary than those of similar sex and age without CMP, and that avoidance of activities due to fear of falling is a significant contributory factor to sedentary behavior in older adults with CMP.”
