Handbook of Pain and Aging

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Biobehavioral Issues in Geriatric Pain

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. The Psychology of Pain and Suffering

      • Jacob Lomranz, David I. Mostofsky

      Pages 3-18

   3. A Brief History of Pain Perception and Pain Tolerance in Aging

      • Shlomo Yehuda, Ralph L. Carasso

      Pages 19-35

   4. Chronic Morbidity and Disability in the U.S. Elderly Populations

      • Kenneth G. Manton

      Pages 37-67

   5. The Assessment of Pain in the Elderly

      • Lucy Gagliese, Ronald Melzack

      Pages 69-96

   6. Nutrition, Disability, and Health in the Older Population

      • Paula A. Quatromoni, Barbara E. Millen

      Pages 97-127

   7. Managing Pain in the Institutionalized Elderly

      • Nancy Wells, Merrie Kaas, Karen Feldt

      Pages 129-151

3. Psychosocial and Psychodynamic Aspects

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 153-153

      PDF

   2. Rehabilitating the Elderly in Return to Work

      • Karen Jacobs

      Pages 155-165

   3. Coping with Pain in Old Age

      • Pamela S. Melding

      Pages 167-184

   4. The Role of Pain in the Cascade from Chronic Illness to Social Disability and Psychological Distress in Late Life

      • Boaz Kahana, Eva Kahana, Kevan Namazi, Kyle Kercher, Kurt Stange

      Pages 185-206

   5. Pain and Psychological Function in Late Life

      • Patricia A. Parmelee

      Pages 207-226

   6. Hypnosis and Pain Relief for Older Persons

      • Nicholas A. Covino

      Pages 227-238

4. Clinical Management and Techniques

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 239-239

      PDF

   2. Management of Chronic Nonmalignant Pain in the Elderly

      • Robert D. Helme, Mark Bradbeer, Benny Katz, Stephen J. Gibson

      Pages 241-266

   3. Cancer Pain in the Elderly

      • Nathan I. Cherny, Beth Popp

      Pages 267-307

   4. Pain in Osteoporosis and Paget’s Disease in the Elderly

      • Jacob Menczel

      Pages 309-319

   5. Oral Facial Pain in the Elderly

      • Jonathan A. Ship, Marc W. Heft, Stephen W. Harkins

      Pages 321-346

   6. Exercise in Aging and Pain Control

      • C. Zvi Fuchs, Leonard D. Zaichkowsky

      Pages 347-364

From time to time, professional journals and edited volumes devote some of their pages to considerations of pain and aging as they occur among the aged in different cultures and populations. One starts from several reasonable assumptions, among them that aging per se is not a disease process, yet the risk and frequency of disease processes increase with ongoing years. The physical body's functioning and ability to restore all forms of damage and insult slow down, the immune system becomes compromised, and the slow-growing pathologies reach their critical mass in the later years. The psychological body also becomes weaker, with unfulfilled promises and expectations, and with tragedies that visit individuals and families, and the prospect that whatever worlds remain to be conquered will most certainly not be met with success in the rapidly passing days and years that can only culminate in death. Despair and depression coupled with infirmity and sensory and! or motor inefficiency aggravate both the threshold and the tolerance for discomfort and synergistically collaborate to perpetuate a vicious cycle in which the one may mask the other. Although the clinician is armed with the latest advances in medicine and phar­ macology, significant improvement continues to elude her or him. The geriatric specialist, all too familiar with such realities, usually can offer little else than a hortative to "learn to live with it," but the powers and effectiveness of learning itself have declined.

• assessment
• coping
• management
• pain
• pharmacology
• psychology
• stress
• treatment

• Department of Psychology, Boston University, Boston, USA

  David I. Mostofsky

• The Herczeg Institute on Aging, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

  Jacob Lomranz

Policies and ethics