Oct 22, 2002 2 min read

PITTSBURGH – The University of Pittsburgh is recruiting patients aged 65 to 84 in the first-ever-comprehensive study of lower back pain in older adults, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. An estimated 50 percent of older adults suffer from chronic pain that may cause significant disruption of physical, psychosocial and cognitive function.

Approximately six million suffer from chronic lower back pain, but there is a lack of data that measure the effect of this pain on its sufferers, according to Thomas E. Rudy, Ph.D., principal investigator and professor of anesthesiology and psychiatry.

Rudy also serves as research director of Pain Evaluation and Treatment Institute and professor of biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

“The purpose of this investigation is to broaden our understanding of disability in the older adult with chronic pain,” Rudy said.

A total of 2,880 people will be screened to obtain 400 participants needed for the study.

Those who complete the study will be compensated $150.

The study will explore the magnitude of the effect of chronic lower back pain on physical, psychosocial and cognitive functioning in 200 adults over age 65 as compared with 200 pain-free control subjects; the impact of chronic lower back pain-associated psychosocial and neuropsychological dysfunction on physical function; and whether older adults with chronic pain can be classified based on psychosocial findings in the same manner as younger chronic pain patients.

Participants will be tested with a protocol designed to assess body mechanics, endurance and coordination; pain intensity; physical performance; disability; sleep; mood; neuropsychological function and self-perceptions of health and well being.

Principal co-investigator is Debra K. Weiner M.D., assistant professor of medicine, division of geriatric medicine and assistant professor of psychiatry, and director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Older Adult Pain Management Program at the Pain Evaluation and Treatment Institute.

Co-investigators are J. Robert Boston, Ph.D., professor of electrical engineering; Joan C. Rogers, Ph.D., OTR/L, professor of occupational therapy, psychiatry and nursing and chair, department of occupational therapy; Susan J. Lieber, M.S., OTR/L, research associate, department of anesthesiology and critical care medicine; Lisa A. Morrow, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and Sara K. Golla, M.D., assistant professor of radiology.

To enroll in the study or to learn more information, call 412-665-80541/8055.