Predictors of neurocognitive performance in chronic pain patients

Abstract

In a sample of 70 chronic pain patients, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were utilized to assess the additive and interactive contributions of pain severity and psychological distress variables to neurocognitive performance across attention and concentration, memory, and reasoning ability domains. Although the full model predicting attention and concentration was found to be significant, there was no significant contribution of pain severity, psychological distress, or the Pain Severity x Psychological Distress interaction to the prediction of attention and concentration scores after controlling for the effect of years of formal education. After controlling for the effect of years of formal education, pain severity and psychological distress did make separate and significant contributions to the prediction of memory scores; however, the Pain Severity x Psychological Distress interaction did not significantly affect memory scores. After controlling for the effect of years of formal education, there was no significant contribution of pain severity, psychological distress, or the Pain Severity x Psychological Distress interaction to reasoning ability scores. Results suggest the importance of assessing memory function when managing psychologically distressed chronic pain patients.

A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Trial of Cannabis Cigarettes in Neuropathic Pain

“…Severe pain coupled with psychological distress is associated with below average scores on cognitive performance tests. 43,44,76 As in these previous reports, the patients in our study were either below or nearly below the cutoff for impairment before receiving study medication. Our study indicates that modest declines in cognitive performance occur with cannabis, particularly in learning and recall, and especially at higher doses.…”

Memory impairment in chronic pain patients and the related neuropsychological mechanisms: a review

“…Grisart (25) found that the recognition grade was not related to anxiety and depression. (3) Analgesic drugs: Iezzi et al (8) investigated the relationship between the analgesic drugs and long-term memory in chronic pain patients, and found no obvious relationship between the drugs and the memory impairment, which was further supported by Grisart et al (25). (4) Attention: Jorge et al (13) found that the decrease in the long-term memory was closely related to attention.…”

“…Iezzi et al (28) also found that the severity of the pain really predicted the memory performance. Hart et al (29) believed that pain interfered with memory process rather than memory-encoding process.…”

“…There were few studies on this issue during the following 20 years. From the 1980s, many findings about memory impairment in chronic pain patients have been reported (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12). Studies on the memory of chronic pain patients are important because of the following reasons.…”

Cognitive impairment in patients with chronic pain: The significance of stress

“…Iezzi et al [32] evaluated patients with chronic pain who were recruited consecutively from a hospital-based pain service. Pain was musculoskeletal in nature (eg, fibromyalgia, myofascial, osteoarthritis), and included patients with multiple pain sites and involvement of the neck or head.…”