Institute for Pain Research & Care / McMaster Institute for Research on Aging Catalyst Grants Persistent Post-Surgical Pain, Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction, and Resilience in Older People Undergoing Elective Knee Surgery: A Mixed Method Project to Explore Associations and Underlying Mechanisms Primary Investigator: Maura Marcucci, MD, MSc Start Date: 2021
Brief Overview and Progress to Date The ArthroCaP project is a mixed methods study exploring the association between chronic post-surgical pain and cognitive decline in ≥50 years old patients who are undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The quantitative part is a cohort study where patients are longitudinally followed after surgery and assessed remotely upon their pain and cognitive function; it includes also the evaluation of biomarkers associated with pain and of development of cognitive dysfunction. For the qualitative part, a sample of study participants will be interviewed either before or after surgery upon their expectations and lived experience with surgery. The study was initially a substudy of the SPOC cohort study. To deal with the impact of the pandemic on
“Given the catalyst nature of the funding, we designed the study as a proof-ofconcept study expected to provide preliminary data and inform future observational and possibly interventional research involving post-surgical pain and perioperative neurocognitive disorders.” - Dr. Maura Marcucci
the pace of recruitment we amended the initial protocol to continue the study as a stand-alone study and to include also patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty. We closed the recruitment in the study and we are now completing the 6- and 12-month follow-up. We estimate to have 80 patients with complete data for the final analyses, with 30 patients included in the biomarker evaluation. We obtained extension of the project timeline. We plan to complete the analyses including the 12-month follow-up in June 2024.
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