The combination of chronic arthritic joint pain and depression could speed declines in cognition and memory in older people The brain might be overwhelmed by dealing with these two threats, researchers say The findings are a wake-up call to doctors to take both conditions more seriously in older patients THURSDAY, Nov. 21, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Having achy, painful joints isn't just a physical woe: Coupled with depression, it could also degrade an older person's brain function over time. That's the conclusion of a study of almost 5,000 older Britons tracked for 12 years.
People who had both chronic joint pain and depression tended to perform worse on cognitive tests, especially tests focused on memory skills. “Both pain and symptoms of depression act on areas of the brain [mainly the hippocampus] associated with cognitive processing," explained Brazilian gerontology researcher and study lead author , of the Federal University of Sergipe. She has a theory as to how joint pain and depression might pose a double whammy to brain health.
"There’s an overlap of information, causing the brain to become ‘congested’ and have to delegate some functions to process the pain response and the symptoms of depression," she said in a university news release. "This would interfere with formation of memory and global cognitive performance. In the study, we saw that over the years, this overload leads to faster cognitive decline.
” The findings were published recently in the journal .