Pain evaluation in patients with cognitive impairment

Abstract

This chapter will explore the issues surrounding pain assessment in the older population. It is well known that we are facing increasing challenges in the future around the world with the potential ageing demographic. With this demographic, we anticipate an increase in the numbers of older adults who may be in chronic pain. Alongside this we have a potential increase to 66 million older adults with dementia worldwide by 2030, and there is a clear and growing need for aged care staff to adequately identify pain in this population despite the difficulties involved. Nevertheless we have the facilities that can help us to identify pain in this population and some tools have a fairly strong evidence base, while others have a strong clinical utility. Following recent systematic reviews of the literature, recommendations will be made regarding the assessment tools that can be used to measure pain intensity along with the other factors that should be considered. A demonstration of how technology can be applied to enhance the assessment process will also be presented. A particular emphasis will be placed upon the tools that can be used for the assessment of pain.