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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Low back pain and disability in older women
— independent association with difficulty but not inability to perform daily activities | | Author(s) | Suzanne G Leveille, Jack M Guralnik, March Hochberg |
| Journal title | The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological sciences and Medical Sciences, vol 54A, no 10, October 1999 |
| Pages | pp M487-493 |
| Keywords | Older women ; Musculoskeletal diseases ; Pain ; Physical disabilities ; Mobility ; Self care capacity ; Longitudinal surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Low back pain is a highly prevalent chronic condition, yet little is known about its disabling effects for older people. This study examines the relationship between the presence and severity of low back pain and disability in some 1000 disabled older women from the US Women's Health and Aging Study (WHAS) over a 5-year period. 42% of participants reported having low back pain for at least one month in the year before baseline. Prevalence of severe back pain decreased markedly with age (10% of those 85 and over versus 23% in two younger 10 year age groups). After multivariate adjustments, women with severe back pain were 3 to 4 times more likely than older women to have a lot of difficulty with light housework or shopping. There was also an increased likelihood of difficulty with mobility tasks and basic activities of daily living (ADLs) among those with severe back pain. No associations were found between back pain and being unable to perform any of the daily activities studied, including possible differences in disablement processes leading to functional difficulties versus functional incapacity. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-000118222 A |
| Classmark | BD: CL: CT7: BN: C4: CA: 3J: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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