Elderly Emergency Patients Less Likely To Receive Pain Medication Than Middle-Aged Patients

A new study finds that people 75 years old or older are less likely to receive any pain medication in hospital emergency departments than middle aged people – those between 35 and 54 years old.

And these differences remained even after researchers took into account how much pain the patients were having, said Timothy F. Platts-Mills, MD, lead author of the study and assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

For example, among older adults reporting severe pain, 67 percent received pain medication, compared to 79 percent of middle aged patients with severe pain.