| dc.description.abstract | With the aging population, there will be an increased prevalence of chronic
degenerative diseases, among them the osteoarthritis (OA). The most effective
procedure for patients with severe knee OA who have not responded to conservative
treatment is surgical treatment, which the most common is a total knee arthroplasty
(TKA). Studies show that this surgery can lead to a significant reduction in pain and
improvement in functional abilities and quality of life, but some people have negative
results against this procedure. The pain catastrophizing, which is a negative orientation
to certain painful stimulus, has been identified as the most important psychological
predictor for worse outcomes after TKA. Thus, the aim of this study was to review the
literature regarding the influence of pain catastrophizing in the prognosis and treatment
of elderly peoples with knee osteoarthritis. It was performed a literature search in
Medline / PubMed, SciELO, LILACS, and Google Scholar from the first record until
june 2012. The search yielded a total of 2218 articles and, after the analysis, it was
included six articles. According to the findings, all items showed that despite the
analysis of other variables such as depression, anxiety, pain severity, disability,
stiffness, expectations and comorbidities, only pain catastrophizing was found to be the
variable that contributes significantly to the results recovery after TKA, or worse scores
on scales that assess catastrophizing as, for example, the PCS (Scale of Pain
Catastrophizing) are related to longer hospital stays, more pain and deterioration in
functionality after TKA. Thus, with basic measures such as the identification of
individuals that catastrophize more, the recovery time of individuals and the costs of the
pre and post-surgical procedure can be reduced, thereby improve the quality of life of
the elderly people who need to go through this intervention. | |
