ArticleJournal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD2017
Sex Differences in the Psychophysical Response to Contact Heat in Moderate Cognitive Impairment Alzheimer's Disease: A Cross-Sectional Brief Report.
Article in Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Experimentally evoked pain in Alzheimer's disease.Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners · 2021Pooled it
- Multidimensional Pain Assessment Tools for Ambulatory and Inpatient Nursing Practice.Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses · 2020Pooled it
- Potential correlation between chronic pain and amyloid beta in Alzheimer's disease.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Dyadic Comparison of Pain and Stress in Alzheimer's Disease and Caregivers.Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses · 2025Article
- Mechanisms of comorbidity between Alzheimer's disease and pain.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2025Review
- Gender Differences in Pain Threshold, Unpleasantness, and Descending Pain Modulatory Activation Across the Adult Life Span: A Cross Sectional Study.The journal of pain · 2024Article
- Article
- Psychophysics of Pain: A Methodological Introduction.Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses · 2023Article
- Treating the most vulnerable: A discursive review of experimental pain in Alzheimer's disease.Nursing open · 2022Review
- The Relationship Between Pain, Function, Behavioral, and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia and Quality of Life.Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses · 2022Article
- Increased pain unpleasantness and pain-related fMRI activation in the periaqueductal gray in Alzheimer's disease.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Uncontrolled Pain and Risk for Depression and Behavioral Symptoms in Residents With Dementia.Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · 2021Article
- Determining the impact of age and sex on the psychophysical and neurophysiological response to thermal pain across the adult lifespan.Journal of advanced nursing · 2021Article
- Policy Issues Affecting Nursing Pain Management: A New Decade of Hope.Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses · 2021Article
- Policy Implications for Pain in Advanced Alzheimer's Disease.Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses · 2021Article
- Structural and Functional Remodeling of the Brain Vasculature Following Stroke.Frontiers in physiology · 2020Review
- Sex Differences in Associations of Cognitive Function with Perceptions of Pain in Older Adults.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2019Article
- Gender differences in interactions and depressive symptoms among hospitalized older patients living with dementia.Journal of women & agingArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPeople with Alzheimer's disease (AD) report pain less frequently and receive less pain medication than people without AD. Recent studies have begun to elucidate how pain may be altered in those with AD. However, potential sex differences in pain responsiveness have never been explored in these patients. It is unclear whether sex differences found in prior studies of healthy young and older individuals extend to people with AD.
objectiveThe purpose of this study was to examine sex differences in the psychophysical response to experimental thermal pain in people with AD.
methodsCross-sectional analysis of 14 male and 14 female age-matched (≥65 years of age, median = 74) and AD severity-matched (Mini-Mental State Exam score <24, median = 16) communicative people who completed thermal psychophysics.
resultsThere was a statistically significant main effect of sex for both temperature and unpleasantness ratings that persisted after controlling for average and current pain (mixed-effects general liner model: temperature: p = 0.004, unpleasantness: p < 0.001). Females reported sensing mild pain and moderate pain percepts at markedly lower temperatures than did males (mild: Cohen's d = 0.72, p = 0.051, moderate: Cohen's d = 0.80, p = 0.036). By contrast, males rated mild and moderate thermal pain stimuli as more unpleasant than did females (mild: Cohen's d = 0.80, p = 0.072, moderate: Cohen's d = 1.32, p = 0.006). There were no statistically significant correlations of temperature with perceived unpleasantness for mild or moderate pain (rs = 0.29 and rs = 0.20 respectively, p > 0.05).
conclusionsResults suggest experimental pain-related sex differences persist in older adults with AD in a different manner than those previously demonstrated in cognitively intact older adults. These findings could potentially aid in developing targeted pain management approaches in this vulnerable population. Further studies are warranted to replicate the findings from this pilot work.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.