People in pain often experience difficulty in concentrating, solving problems, and remembering things. UmeƄ researcher Stefan Sƶderfjell has now shown in his doctoral dissertation that people in pain actually do have these problems with their so-called cognitive functions.
In a series of cognitive tests, mainly for memory, results were compared between people with and without pain in their arms, shoulders, neck, and back. Some one thousand individuals from UmeĆ„ aged 35ā80 took part in the tests. The results show that people experiencing physical pain have a lower capacity to remember than people without pain. The normal loss of memory capacity that comes with aging is also more palpable among people in pain.
It is generally known that pain causes physical suffering. The fact that pain also hampers basic mental faculties makes it all the more urgent to come to grips with this public health problem. Stefan Sƶderfjell feels that the impaired cognitive functions of patients in pain should be addressed by doctors, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and the like, so that instructions, information, and training programs are made clear and easy for patients to understand.
The test subjects are involved in the so-called Betula Project, in which researchers have been following the mental and physical status of a group of people as they age, starting in 1988. More information about the project can be found at: http://www.psy.umu.se/memory/Betula.html
For more information, please contact:
Stefan Sƶderfjell, Department of Psychology, UmeƄ University, phone: +46 90-786 60 44
cell phone: +46 730-801 488
e-mail: Stefan.soderfjell@psy.umu.se
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Expertsvar, The Swedish Research Council, Hantverkargatan 11B, Stockholm SWEDENPhone +46(0)8 546 44 000
P.O. Box 1035, SE-101 38 Stockholm, expertsvar@vr.se
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