SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Pain Res.
Sec. Geriatric Pain
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpain.2025.1657014
Effectiveness of digital pain management for older adults with musculoskeletal pain: systematic review with meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Musculoskeletal pain is highly prevalent among older adults and a leading cause of disability. Digital health promises to deliver timely and quality care, but existing reviews fail to be specific for older adults, focus on a single type of technology or a single body site, and do not provide an integrated overview of the effectiveness of current digital interventions. This systematic review with meta-analysis (Prospero ID: CRD42024549668) aimed to assess the effectiveness of digital interventions for pain management in reducing pain intensity and self-reported disability in older adults with musculoskeletal pain. We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Academic Search Complete from inception to April 2025; extracted data on participants, interventions, and primary (pain intensity and self-reported disability) and secondary outcomes (performance, pain-related psychological variables, and adverse events). Thirty-six RCTs were included (n=4041). Compared to other active interventions, older adults who received digital pain management reported lower pain intensity (SMD=-0.23, 95%CI=-0.37;-0.09) and lower self-reported disability (SMD=-0.22, 95%CI=-0.39;-0.04) at post-intervention. The effect was maintained at 6 months for pain intensity (SMD=- 0.20; 95%CI=-0.38;-0.03), but not for disability (SMD=0.13, 95%CI=-0.38;0.63). The certainty of evidence was low or very low, and heterogeneity was low to substantial. Most studies included domains judged as high risk of bias. Therefore, the evidence is very uncertain on the effect of digital interventions on pain intensity and disability. They may decrease pain intensity and disability similarly to other interventions, but more research is needed to investigate the effect of digital interventions and identify key aspects that maximise the intervention.
Keywords: Pain, older adults, Digital Health, telerehabilitation, mobile health
Received: 30 Jun 2025; Accepted: 02 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Silva, Santos, Andias and Rocha. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Anabela G Silva, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.