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Pain perception in elders
Vítková, Jana ; Vaculín, Šimon (advisor) ; Telenský, Petr (referee)
The aging of the population is one of the problems of the current period. With increasing age, we have to deal with the accompanying phenomenon more and more - the pain which significantly inconveniences the life and makes normal integration of elderly people into society impossible. This bachelor thesis summarises the present knowledge of pain in elderly people. It addresses the mechanism of pain perception, physiology of aging and types of pain which occur in elderly people. Some types of pain are accompanying diseases which occur during old age - neuropathic, chronic and oncologic pains. The higher occurrence of these types of pain could be explained by the progressive degeneration of nerve system during aging, either due to demyelization and reduction of the number of nerve fibres or due to accumulation of free radicals in the organism. On the other hand, there are some types of pain which elderly people feel with lower intensity - visceral and postoperative pain. At the same time, the pain threshold is increasing in the elderly people. This paradox, i.e. on one hand higher occurrence of chronic pain at higher intensity and on the other hand reduction of visceral pain and postoperative pain could be explained by diffuse noxious inhibitory controls. The current knowledge of the pain in the elderly is...
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