Restricted mobility in nursing home residents. The role of pain and cognitive capacity

Pain, restriction of mobility and cognitive impairment are often present in old age and intensify each other. Is there a relationship between mobility, pain, cognitive capacity, diagnoses and number of prescribed medication for residents of nursing homes? Subgroup analysis of the baseline data from an intervention study for optimization of the medication safety of 120 nursing home residents. Pain was presumed in 77.8% of the residents. Persons with cognitive impairment were more frequently affected. The results of the observational and self-reported pain assessment in cognitively impaired patients did not agree for two-thirds of the cases. A correlation between prevalence of pain, pain intensity and mobility could only be shown for persons without cognitive impairment. Half of the persons were unable to walk; 80% of the residents with analgesics as a permanent medication were more restricted in their mobility. Cognitive impairment is associated with pain and reduced mobility, whereby self-rated pain did not concur with the observational pain assessment for two-thirds of the residents with cognitive impairment. This illustrates the difficulty of observational pain assessment.