The Consequences Of Pain In Older Adults

It was a typical early morning on the busy cardiac floor. As I sat down to receive report for the three patients I was assigned for the day, I was not surprised to learn that each of my assigned patients were older adults well past the age of eighty. Each patient had a different background situation. One patient successfully lived at home alone, the other resided in an assistant living facility, and finally the last patient was faced with homelessness. The purpose of this discussion board is to describe what wellness within chronic illness means to me, discuss what the consequences of pain are in the older adult while incorporating how age-related changes affect psychological and cognitive functioning.
According to the World Health Organization (2017), wellness is defined as the ability of a patient to function at the highest level of physical, spiritual, and emotional …show more content…
As the body ages, many health disparities accompany the ageing body, such as pain. As the older adult ages, psychological and cognitive functions decline. This means that sometimes older adults, who have cognitive deficits such as a decreased ability to verbalize words, or psychological declines such as dementia, many have difficulty communicating the pain they are feeling. When faced with unresolved pain, older adults subsequently develop decreased levels in quality of life (Savvas & Gibson, 2016). Therefore, it is ever important for healthcare providers to be aware of non-verbal cues of decreased comfort and pain. Also aiding in the identification of pain, nurses should directly ask the older adult if they are feeling discomfort or pain and then relay any pain findings to the caring physician. Being a patient advocate for older adults who have trouble communicating because of cognitive declines is an important aspect of providing high quality healthcare services to the ageing