Undertreatment Of Pain Essay

Pain, although not an inevitable component of aging, affects the lives of many elderly patients. The treatment of pain in geriatric patients poses a great challenge to nurses with many elderly patients underreporting their pain, in beliefs that pain is an inevitable component of the aging process. An even greater challenge presents itself in the treatment of pain for cognitively impaired individuals. In the article presented by Bauer, et al. (2016), the authors analyze how pain treatment in nursing home residents differs according to the patient’s cognitive state. Those who are cognitively able to express their pain have more effective treatment of pain than those who are cognitively impaired (Bauer, et al., 2016). The increasing difficulty with adequate communication skills develops along with the advancement of cognitive impairment. An inability to communicate to a nurse or physician that they are experiencing pain leads to undertreatment of pain. This lack of communication of pain poses a very large barrier in a patient receiving adequate pain management. Further, it is noted that pain medication that is prescribed to those that are cognitively impaired tends to be a lower dosage and the stronger types …show more content…
Pain, or lack thereof, can never be assumed in a person. Patients who do not or cannot express pain still experience pain as others do, regardless of the standardized belief that those in pain would make it known. One of the roles of nurses is to serve as advocates for their patients. Inadequately assessing for pain in a patient does not depict the nurse as the patient advocate. It is best for a nurse to assume that any procedure or condition that is painful for a cognitively intact person would be just as painful for those who are cognitively impaired and cannot effectively express