Alzheimer’s disease may affect people’s ability to recognize when they are in pain, a new study shows.
Undetected pain may allow underlying health issues to go untreated, leading to serious complications, such as organ damage, researchers from Vanderbilt University in Nashville cautioned.
For the three-year study, the researchers tested two groups of adults who were aged 65 or older. One group was made up of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which affects thinking skills, memory and intellect. Members of the second group did not have the progressive neurological disease.
The study used a device to subject participants to different heat sensations and asked them to report their pain levels. After the tests, the researchers analyzed self-reported pain.
“We found that participants with Alzheimer’s disease required higher temperatures to report sensing warmth, mild pain and moderate pain than the other participants,” said study first author Todd Monroe, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt’s School of Nursing. “What we didn’t find was a difference between the two groups in reporting how unpleasant the sensations were at any level.” To continue reading, click here.
Excerpted from an article in HealthDay News published on July 20, 2016.