Shifting Paradigms: Advance Care Planning for Pain Management in Older Adults With Dementia

Abstract

Ensuring effective pain management is an important quality of life (and death) issue for older adults with dementia, particularly since they are more vulnerable to under-assessment and under-treatment of pain. Yet, pain management decisions are often made by health care providers and caregivers with little to no input on the older adult's with dementia values for pain management. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has recognized the revolutionary imperative to change the manner in which pain care is planned and coordinated. Implementing advance care planning (ACP) prior to advanced stages of dementia may assist in developing a person-centered pain management plan and improve pain care for this population throughout the dementia trajectory. This forum overviews the current state of pain management in dementia, discusses the significance of ACP in a pain management context, and offers practical solutions for common challenges in ACP. Dementia in this article is an umbrella term referring to the many forms of dementiathat cause cognitive impairment.