A new study, Pain and incident cognitive impairment in very old Mexican American adults," authored by Sadaf Arefi Milani, Claudia Sanchez, Yong-Fang Kuo, Brian Downer, Soham Al Snih, Kyriakos S Markides, and Mukaila Raji has been published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The study found that among elderly Mexican Americans, experiencing pain, whether they received treatment for it or not, was linked to the development of memory and thinking problems over time. This connection was influenced in part by symptoms of depression. The researchers suggest that it's important to screen for depression in older individuals dealing with chronic pain. They also highlight the need for further research to understand how pain might lead to cognitive issues and to explore the effectiveness of different treatments in preventing this decline.