Physiological changes from ageing regarding pain perception and its impact on pain management for older adults.

Physiological changes that occur during ageing can affect the incidence, experience and treatment of pain in older adults. This article reviews these physiological changes and how they can affect the best approach to management.

Acute pain management for older adults.

Older adults may experience a number of physiological changes that influence how acute pain is perceived, diagnosed and managed by healthcare professionals. Understanding these differences enables the identification, assessment and treatment of acute pain in older adults. Combining careful selection of pain medications with appropriate titration and monitoring allows the analgesic needs of this group to be met.

Severe diffuse proliferative bronchiolitis complicating culture-proven disseminated BCG infection after intravesical instillation for bladder cancer.

A man in his 70s was admitted to hospital following several months of dyspnoea, night sweats, weight loss and, latterly, fevers. His symptoms correlated with a second maintenance cycle of intravesical BCG instillation for superficial bladder cancer. Blood tests showed raised C-reactive protein, alkaline phosphatase and gamma-GT, although extensive further investigations did not reveal any specific cause.

Blood group type A secretors are associated with a higher risk of COVID-19 cardiovascular disease complications.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus causes COVID-19, an infection capable of causing severe disease and death but which can also be asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic. We investigated whether ABO blood group or secretor status was associated with COVID-19 severity. We investigated secretor status because expression of ABO glycans on secreted proteins and non-erythroid cells are controlled by a fucosyltransferase (FUT2), and inactivating FUT2 mutations result in a non-secretor phenotype which protects against some viral infections.