[Not just tolerating chronic pain. Which analgesics for elderly patients?]

Some 25-50% of all elderly persons living at home suffer from chronic pain. Among nursing home residents, the figures are appreciably higher, ranging between 45% and 80%. The major causes of pain in old age are degenerative joint disease, lower back pain, cancer, osteoporosis and herpes zoster, polymyalgia rheumatica, and arterial occlusive disease. In many cases, chronic pain goes undiagnosed and is not properly treated. When a correct diagnosis is established, however, it is almost always possible to achieve adequate pain relief by a combination of non-drug treatment and analgesics, and thus to improve the patient's quality of life.