Contact heat sensitivity and reports of unpleasantness in communicative people with mild to moderate cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease: a cross-sectional study

Table 2 Psychophysical summary of temperature thresholds necessary to produce ratings at each condition in a sex-age matched sample of people with and without Alzheimer’s disease

	Total (N = 80)	Control (N = 40)	AD (N = 40)	p-value	Cohen’s d
	Median [IQR]	Median [IQR]	Median [IQR]
Just-noticeable warmth
Temperature	33.0 [32–35]	32.0 [32–34]	34.0 [33–36]	0.002	0.64
Affect	0.0 [0–2]	0.0 [0–2]	0.0 [0–1]	0.846	0.04
Weak pain
Temperature	37.0 [35–41]	35.5 [34–39]	39.0 [35–42]	0.016	0.51
Affect	4.0 [0–5]	3.3 [0–5]	4.0 [1–6]	0.402	0.18
Moderate pain
Temperature	42.0 [38–45]	40.0 [38–44]	43.0 [39–45]	0.043	0.45
Affect	6.0 [5–8]	6.0 [5–8]	6.5 [4–9]	0.867	0.04

Temperature was measured in degrees Celsius (range = 30–55 °C). Affect is the affective distress measured via a 0–20 Unpleasantness scale (0 = neutral, 20 = extremely unpleasant). The p-value was derived from a Mann–Whitney U Test. AD Alzheimer’s disease, IQR interquartile range