Geriatric nursing
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Many elders suffer from chronic pain resulting from osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee or hip. This review identifies useful pain measures for assessing OA. ⋯ Generic pain measures, the verbal descriptor scale, and the 21-point box scale, also are discussed. Because knee/hip OA is characterized by pain that is activated during or aggravated by certain activities, disease-specific pain scales that measure pain associated with these various activities are more effective than a generic pain scale.