Prevalence of pain with advancing age brief report.

Background: The epidemiology of chronic pain with advancing age remains poorly established. Although most studies have examined somatic (musculoskeletal and joint) pain, visceral pain (such as headache and abdominal pain) has warranted less attention. We present longitudinal data from age 70 to 90 years concerning chronic musculoskeletal/joint pain, abdominal pain, and headache.

Methods: Data was collected by the Jerusalem Longitudinal Study, which is a prospective study of a representative sample from the 1920-1921 birth-cohort living in West Jerusalem. Participants underwent comprehensive assessment at home in 1990, 1998, 2005, and 2010, at ages 70 (n = 460), 78 (n = 763), 85 (n = 1149), and 90 years (n = 394), respectively, and were directly questioned concerning the presence and location of pain.

Results: The overall prevalence of pain of any kind at ages 70, 78, 85, and 90 years was 73% (n = 336/460), 81.1% (n = 619/763), 56.3% (n = 647/1149), and 31.2% (n = 123/394), respectively. Pain at younger ages only was associated with female gender, lower educational status, functional dependence, physical inactivity, increased body mass index, loneliness, depression, and poor self-rated health. At ages 70, 78, 85, and 90 years, chronic neck/back pain was present among 41.5%, 58.9%, 30.1%, and 14.6% of participants, respectively; chronic joint pain was present among 43.0%, 60.6%, 45.2%, and 25.2%, respectively. In contrast abdominal pain was less common and disappeared among the oldest old: 14.7%, 13.9%, 1.7%, and 1.5%, respectively, with a similar pattern for headache: 43.3%, 33.5%, 2.1%, and 1.3%. While pain was reported at ≥2 sites by 42.3% and 54.6% at ages 70 and 78 years, respectively, by ages 85 and 90 years, pain was most frequently reported at only 1 site.

Conclusions: Visceral pain (headache and abdominal pain) completely disappeared among the oldest old, in contrast to a far smaller decline in somatic (musculoskeletal and joint) pain.