[Interventions based on mindfulness for the elderly chronic pain: review of the literature]

The chronic pain-bio-psycho-social phenomenon would index a transition between a pain alarm and a pain disease, with reshaping of the inhibitive brain areas and a takeover of psychological factors on the modulatory systems. The current treatment of elders' chronic pain suffers from many limits, and this article addresses this issue by discussing a new and innovative non-pharmacological intervention (mindfulness therapy) to reduce consequences of chronic pain in daily-life. Mindfulness therapy mainly targets two transdiagnostic mental processes - avoidance and self-centered ruminations - which leads to emotional dysregulation in chronic pain patients. Although many studies documented the beneficial effect of mindfulness therapy on psychological symptoms in adults, there is still a lack of studies testing the effect of mindfulness therapy on emotional regulation and psychological symptoms in elderly population with chronic pain. It is therefore necessary to investigate therapeutic efficacy with this population. In conclusion, we formulate several lines of research to test the hypothesis that the effect of the mindfulness therapy on targeted processes would improve elders' ability to cope with chronic pain and would reduce disturbances associated with chronic pain.