Relief in the Golden Years How Physicians Can Better Manage Chronic Pain in Elderly Patients
just part of getting old.” It’s important that physicians do not accept such vague responses in regard to their patients’ pain. A pain scale is far more effective for assessing a patient’s pain. Additionally, American Nurse Today, the official journal of the American Nurses Association, recommends that health care professionals instruct older patients to keep a pain journal. This enables patients to record their pain between appointments and provide insight into the cause of pain. Pain journals can help physicians identify cases of chronic pain among older patients. Chronic pain is often a symptom of health disorders associated with advanced age. Peripheral vascular disorders, neuropathy, and musculoskeletal disorders, like arthritis and osteoporosis, can all lead to chronic pain. It is important for physicians to remember that while these disorders come with age, the chronic pain they cause should never be considered inevitable. Chronic pain has been linked to depression, poor sleep quality, and reduced social activity, all of which can lead to worse health issues in older patients. Aging is a natural part of human life, but chronic pain is not a normal part of the aging process. Physicians must be able to prepare a plan of care, be it through pharmacologic or nonpharmacologic pain management, that can successfully address their patient’s chronic pain and improve their quality of life. No person should be told they just have to “deal with the pain” due to their age.
‘Shoe Dog’ Gives Insight Into Nike’s Success When an entrepreneur or company becomes massively successful, it’s easy to construct a narrative that makes success seem like destiny. They look back and interpret every decision as a stepping stone on their way to eventual victory. Honest accounts of what it takes to dominate an industry are hard to come by, which makes Nike CEO Phil Knight’s “Shoe Dog” a refreshing change of pace from the standard business memoir. Completely candid, Knight gives equal space to his successes, failures, and insecurities. He isn’t afraid to admit when luck was the deciding factor. That’s not to say that Knight isn’t a visionary in many ways. In the early days of Nike, Knight hustled to an extreme degree and sold track shoes out of his trunk. He surrounded himself with smart, capable people, expanded sensibly, and never lost sight of his vision. As we age, some things are inevitable. Wrinkles will appear where there were none before, streaks of gray begin to run through our hair, and our health declines. By 2030, the population over the age of 65 in the United States is expected to reach 70 million. There are certain demands the medical field must meet in order to properly treat this growing population. One step involves becoming more adept at identifying and treating chronic pain in elderly patients. It can be a challenge to identify chronic pain in older adults because this demographic tends to underreport their pain. Often, when asked about their pain, older patients reply, “No worse than usual,” “The same old pain,” or “It’s
resource of the month American Society of Pain Educators Empowers Patients and Physicians For years, opioid abuse has been a growing problem in the field of pain treatment. Today, this epidemic is a national crisis, and one thing is certain: It is time to find a better way to treat pain. The American Society of Pain Educators (ASPE) is a nonprofit focused on educating health care professionals to help them become Certified Pain Educators (CPEs). CPEs act as “curbside consultants” to provide education within a clinical practice or through formal presentations about pain assessment, evaluation, and management. Though ASPE is the only organization dedicated to pain education training, becoming a CPE is not a requirement for membership. ASPE created an expansive network of professionals in the medical field. Members operate in hospitals, dental practices, nursing homes, and every other health care setting to help patients and other professionals learn how to treat pain in the safest way possible.
Called an “honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like” by Bill Gates, “Shoe Dog” soars in a way few business books manage to.
Discover everything this organization has to offer at paineducators.org.
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