The Influence of Age on the Relationship Between Experienced Pain and Cognition
Keywords
No Thumbnail Available
Authors
Issue Date
2018-07-05
Language
en
Document type
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Title
ISSN
Volume
Issue
Startpage
Endpage
DOI
Abstract
The current study investigated the moderating role of age on the relationship between executive functioning and clinical or experimental pain experience pain in chronic pain-patients. We measured the time of tolerance, the affective experience and the intensity of the pain after inducing experimental pain with the Cold Pressor Test. We measured clinical pain experience with the VAS (minimum, maximum and current), and the executive functioning with the TMT and Stroop-Test. Age moderates the relationship between executive functioning and the clinical pain experience, but not between executive functioning and experimental pain experience. In younger and middle-aged participants decreased executive functioning is associated with more clinical pain experience, but there is no association in elderly. This negative association found in younger and middle-aged people is possibly caused by the limited resources of the brain. In elderly this effect is possibly canceled out by cognitive decline that causes a diminished tendency to express.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen