The effect of increasing age on nocturnal joint pain in patients about to undergo hip or knee joint arthroplasty

Many hip and knee joint scores rate nocturnal symptoms as important in their scoring systems. The aim of this study was to determine if being woken up with pain disappears with advancing age in patients with arthritic hip or knee joints. Data was collected from 60 patients with an average of age of 69.0 years through a questionnaire conducted at the time of their pre-operative assessment, 36 of them were awaiting hip replacements, 24 knee replacement surgery. There was a positive correlation between age and the loss-of nocturnal pain symptoms (p < 0.05), this was seen more strongly for hips rather than knees. The average ages of those patients reporting night pain was 65.7 years and of those who did not report night pain 75.5 years. This is almost certainly because of a change in sleep pattern and nociceptive inputs. Although elderly patients may score more highly on other areas of a joint score they may be under assessed if nocturnal symptoms are relied upon. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.