Painfully Unaware
09/18/09, East Hartford

A five year study of 174 nursing home residents, 122 relatives and 171 nurses was conducted at the Pain Expertise Centre at the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands. The study revealed that chronic pain experienced by the residents was routinely not detected. Cognitively impaired residents faired worse in terms of how many relatives and nurses were able to diagnose pain levels.

Awareness of residents' pain was much less if the resident was resting. Nurses and relatives assessed pain levels at zero, using a scale of one to 10, while the residents assessed their "at rest" pain at a "4."

Long-term care experts in the Netherlands are using this study to call upon nurses to learn how to read signs of pain from the residents for whom they care, especially those with dementia or who are aphasic (cannot speak).

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