Teichmüller K, Bast L, Rittner H L, Kindl G
Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Schmerzmedizin (ZiS), Klinik für Anästhesiologie, Intensivmedizin, Notfallmedizin und Schmerztherapie, Universitätsklinikum Würzburg, Straubmühlweg 2a - Haus A9, 97078, Würzburg, Deutschland.
Abteilung Interventionspsychologie, Lehrstuhl für Psychologie I, Institut für Psychologie, Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Deutschland.
Schmerz. 2022 Dec;36(6):429-436. doi: 10.1007/s00482-022-00663-9. Epub 2022 Aug 26.
International studies have shown negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mood and levels of distress. Correlations between the pandemic and higher levels of pain as well as greater pain-related disability have also been found; however, studies report ambiguous results about whether elderly people cope differently with the pandemic and its effects.
The University Hospital of Würzburg offers multimodal pain therapy for older adults. The current study performed a retrospective analysis of routine data measured during an interdisciplinary multimodal assessment. We compared n = 75 patients taking part in the therapy during 2018 and 2019 to n = 42 patients assessed in 2020-2021. We measured pain, mental distress and physical functioning using the German Pain Questionnaire, clinical diagnosis, and geriatric tests of physical fitness.
Both subgroups did not differ in demographic characteristics, neither did we find significant differences regarding pain intensity, pain-related disability, and mental health; however, patients before the pandemic reported a higher number of days on which they felt limited due to pain. In the physical performance test, we even found significantly better results during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The current data do not support an aggravation of pain or mental and physical well-being. Possible explanations could be better resilience in elderly people due to their experience of life, financial security or less change in their daily life.
国际研究表明，新冠疫情对情绪和痛苦程度有负面影响。疫情与更高水平的疼痛以及更大的疼痛相关残疾之间的相关性也已被发现；然而，关于老年人应对疫情及其影响的方式是否不同，研究报告的结果并不明确。
维尔茨堡大学医院为老年人提供多模式疼痛治疗。本研究对跨学科多模式评估期间测量的常规数据进行了回顾性分析。我们将2018年和2019年参与治疗的75名患者与2020 - 2021年评估的42名患者进行了比较。我们使用德国疼痛问卷、临床诊断和老年体能测试来测量疼痛、精神痛苦和身体功能。
两个亚组在人口统计学特征上没有差异，在疼痛强度、疼痛相关残疾和心理健康方面也没有发现显著差异；然而，疫情前的患者报告因疼痛而感到受限的天数更多。在体能测试中，我们甚至发现新冠疫情期间的结果明显更好。
目前的数据不支持疼痛或身心健康恶化的情况。可能的解释是，老年人由于生活经历、经济保障或日常生活变化较小，具有更好的恢复力。
