Pain Management In Nursing

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Pain is a complicated phenomenon that is challenging for healthcare personal to measure because it is an experience that can only be judged by the person going through it. Pain is experienced at all ages of life, but the occurrence of pain more than doubles once an individual is over the age of 60 (Hanks-Bell, Halvey, & Paice, 2004). Pain is often overlooked and undertreated in the aging population living in long term care (LTC). It is estimated that 45% to 83% of older adults living in long term care facilities are faced with undertreated pain (Hanks-Bell et al., 2004). Pain that is unrelieved has significant consequences on a person’s sleep, functional, cognitive, emotional, and social status (Hanks-Bell et al., 2004). When a person is in …show more content…

The purpose of this study was to “identify barriers to optimal pain management in LTC from a nursing perspective” (Egan & Cornally, 2013, p. 26). This study focused on caregiver, patient, and organisational-related barriers. Patient related barriers had the highest overall mean score, with the highest of 56% of respondents reporting that ‘difficulty assessing pain in older people due to problems with cognition (delirium, dementia)’ occurred ‘frequently’ ‘very frequently’ or ‘always’ interfering with pain management (Egan & Cornally, 2013). Another interesting fact taken from this article is that ‘antipsychotics are considered before pain medications in agitated patients’ was the variable that is perceived as interfering most often (Egan & Cornally, 2013) under ‘caregiver-related barriers.’ Additionally, it was noticed that pain management education significantly affects the way nurses’ perceive patient-related barriers. Nurses, who have education on pain management, have a higher perception of patient-related barriers (Egan & Cornally, 2013). Identifying and eliminating barriers to pain management in long-term care would allow healthcare workers to better address and relieve patient’s pain. If nurses were able to quickly identify pain, the major physical and psychosocial consequences of unresolved pain would be reduced, leading to an increase in quality of

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