Pain and Olfactory Perception and other sensorial impairment in geriatric women with Chronic Intimate Partner Violence

The Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) turns out to be of particular social importance, taking into account the current high incidence and the cognitive, emotional, behavioral and social consequences that this phenomenon determines. The knowledge so far produced highlights how the presence of a prolonged stress causes psychophysiological consequences that generate cognitive, emotional and behavioural dysfunctions in victims of violence. The aim of this study is to investigate in geriatric women who have suffered chronically from the partner's violence, the relationship between IPV, nociception and memory in relation to common cognitive aspects. This relationship determines a connection between processes that in a different way contribute to assessing the salience of specific stimuli related to the trauma suffered and to reactivate this salience even in subsequent moments. The perception of pain is, in fact, cognitively codified in a multi-sensorial way, attributing a specific value and emotional and perceptive salience, which we can connect to the theories of the embodied cognition. The analysis of this framework was useful for the development of an intercultural model aimed at clarifying the cognitive, emotional and behavioral functioning of women victims of violence in relation to the evaluation of pain perception. This assessment will use neuropsychological tests to investigate cognitive and emotional responses and psychological tests to investigate the personality of the victims.