Chronic Pain and Memory Loss

From the Calgary Herald – Monday, May 21, 2007

Chronic Pain May Lead to Memory Loss

Study reveals shorter attention span in sufferers
JODIE SINNEMA EDMONTON JOURNAL, EDMONTON

When Deana Adams sliced her left hand on a sharp piece of steel at work more than three years ago, a doctor gave her four simple stitches, unaware that the nerve between her thumb and index finger had been severed.

The pain since then — zinging like a shock from an electric fence and running up her arm to her shoulder, neck and head — has been at times so severe it has affected her marriage, interrupted her sleep and stolen the good memory she prided herself in.
“I forget things really easily,” says Adams, 41, who works as a surgical processor at the University of Alberta hospital, sterilizing, decontaminating and organizing hospital equipment. “The pain takes over. It sort of just swarms in and says, ‘ Here I am, listen to me,’ and you want to do anything to relieve it.”

Adams’s memory problems are common among people with chronic pain, says new research from the University of Alberta.

Bruce Dick, a clinical psychologist at the Multidisciplinary Pain Centre at the U of A hospital, discovered two-thirds of people with chronic pain had some measure of cognitive impairment that shortened their attention span and made it difficult to remember things. Half of those people had significant memory issues, especially when multi-tasking.

“Chronic pain is something that is disruptive,” said Dick, whose research paper appears in this month’s edition of the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia. “Part of the rationale for doing this study is we have some fairly good medical treatments aimed at helping relieve pain. What’s more difficult sometimes is affecting the bigger picture of people’s lives, so trying to lesson the disability or helping improve people’s quality of life.”

Knowing that chronic-pain sufferers may have difficulty remembering certain details during their day, pain therapists may be able to develop new strategies to help patients overcome the gaps.

Adams works through her memory lapses with cue cards that list the intricacies of putting together full surgical sets at work. If she’s called away from a task, these notes keep her on track.

At home, Adams’s attention has also suffered. She used to plow through paperbacks in hours, but now picks up a half-read book and can’t remember the plot line. She forgets conversations and birthday cards she’s sent.

“Emotionally, when it first happened, I got depressed really bad,” she said. “When you’re in pain, you don’t want anyone to touch you. You don’t sleep. You don’t eat. You’re constantly on guard.”

Since then, she has cut back on her medication, but still takes 27 different pills throughout the day.

Dick hopes his study will provide “some validation for the people who suffer with these complex pain problems. It can be easy for a patient to jump to a conclusion that ‘I’m crazy.’ ”