Adults 50 and older are more likely to experience chronic pain and use a wide variety of treatments including pain medications, medical marijuana, and non-pharmaceutical methods. This study hopes to better understand the experiences of older adults with chronic pain who are using either conventional chronic pain treatments or medical marijuana. This will be the first prospective cohort study that innovatively combines technology-based ecological momentary assessments (EMA) and in-person visits over 12 months to obtain both subjective and objective data on medical marijuana’s short- and long-term effects on older adults with chronic pain.

Overview

Why is this important?

Over 50 million adults experience chronic pain. Chronic pain can be dangerous to your health, and contributes to high health care costs. Research studies can help us understand chronic pain and the ways people treat it. Participating in this study will help you track changes in your chronic pain and your treatments.

What do we hope to accomplish?

We hope to compare the experiences of older adults who are using different treatments for their chronic pain, including medical marijuana.