Seniors Get Less Pain Relief in the Emergency Room

An interesting study was done by University of North Carolina researchers.  They examined whether people 75 or older were less likely to receive adequate pain medication in hospital emergency rooms than middle-aged people.  It’s published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.  

It’s estimated that more than half all emergency room visits are for the evaluation and treatment of pain.  This study examined data from US emergency rooms between 2003 and 2009.  Over 7,500 pain-related visits by patients 75 and older were evaluated. Their analgesic treatment was compared with that of pain-related visits by patients aged 35 to 54.

In the 75-and-older patients with pain, 49% received an analgesic, compared with 68% of the middle-aged patients.  And 35% of the elderly subjects received an opioid drug (e.g. morphine or oxycodone), compared with 49% of the middle-aged (35 to 54-year-olds.  These differences in analgesic therapy in different age groups persisted after the statistical analyses were adjusted to make allowances for pain severity, gender, race, and other factors.  The final result: visits by patients 75 and older were 20% less likely than patients aged 35 to 54 to receive an analgesic (such as ibuprophen, or Advil®), and 15% less likely to receive a stronger, i.e. an opioid, analgesic.

The investigators said that more research is needed to understand the reason for this age-related difference in treatment.  It seems likely that there is justifiable anxiety that the side-effects of analgesic are considered a reason for avoiding their use in the elderly.  However, old folk need relief from their pain, too.  We can hope that ER physicians attitudes will change a bit, and that safer analgesic modalities will be developed soon.

Comments

[laurahill]

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