• J Am Med Dir Assoc · Jul 2008

    Who suffers most? Dementia and pain in nursing home patients: a cross-sectional study.

    • Bettina Sandgathe Husebo, Liv Inger Strand, Rolf Moe-Nilssen, Stein Borgehusebo, Dag Aarsland, and Anne Elisabeth Ljunggren.
    • Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. Bettina.Husebo@isf.uib.no
    • J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2008 Jul 1;9(6):427-33.

    ObjectivesTo explore the relationship between nursing home patients with different stages of dementia and different dementia diagnoses and use of pain medication according to pain intensity.DesignCross-sectional study.Setting And ParticipantsParticipants included 181 consecutive, long-term stay patients, 43 primary caregivers, 1 geriatric study nurse, and 4 physicians of a Norwegian nursing home.MeasurementsAdmission records, prescription lists, care plans, Mini-Mental State Examination, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), cerebral computed tomography, pain diagnoses and pain locations by physicians' examinations, and pain intensity by MOBID-2 (Mobilization-Observation-Behavior-Intensity-Dementia Pain Scale), a novel staff-administered pain tool in dementia.ResultsPatients with severe dementia do not experience less pain intensity (P = .079), numbers of pain diagnoses (P = .172), and pain locations (P = .202) compared to other stages of dementia. Severely demented patients receiving opioids demonstrated higher pain intensity (mean 4.4, SD 1.7) than nondemented patients (mean 2.9, SD 1.8), and received less pain treatment (P = .018). Pain intensity did not differ between diagnostic groups of dementia (P = .439). Patients with mixed dementia receiving opioids had more pain (mean 5.3, SD 1.5, range 4-7) than mentally healthy controls and received less pain treatment (P < .005).ConclusionPatients with severe dementia and mixed dementia are at high risk to suffer from severe pain. More research and quality improvement programs are needed to increase the knowledge in pain treatment by staff, which requires competence in both pain assessment and dementia.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.