MEDICATION & RESEARCH Enhancing Wellbeing
Hannah Miller, Head of Dementia at Orchard Care Homes, explains how the use of a digital pain assessment tool has been linked to improved wellbeing for residents living with dementia in a recent study.
Of those people living in care homes, it is estimated that over 50% experience persistent or chronic pain. People living with dementia are more susceptible to increased levels of pain as they have decreased mobility and therefore are at higher risk of falls, accidents, and injury. In addition, like other care home residents, they may experience age-related conditions such as osteoarthritis, pressure sores, skin tears, stiffening of joints, muscle rigidity and constipation.
However, people living with dementia can experience difficulties in verbally communicating that they are experiencing pain, along with the severity and location of that pain. To compensate, they become more reliant on non-verbal communication, through behaviour, which may include anger, frustration, restlessness, withdrawal, and changes in body language, speech and sleep patterns, appetite, and facial expressions.
“People living with dementia can experience difficulties in verbally communicating that they are experiencing pain.”
Moreover, with over 90% of people living with dementia affected by behavioural and psychological symptoms (BPSD), pain is oſten missed and may remain untreated and unrecognised. This can result in inappropriate prescribing of psychotropic medication.
Assessing and managing pain effectively is therefore crucial to supporting high-quality care for those living with dementia. Digital tools can be harnessed to help facilitate this. Indeed, care providers can utilise technology to overcome gaps in care documentation and give them the means to better plan care according to evidence-based practices.
DIGITAL PAIN ASSESSMENT
To more effectively meet the needs of residents living with advanced dementia, Orchard Care Homes established a multi-faceted psychosocial intervention programme called Reconnect, which provides enriched psychosocial care to reduce people’s distress and thus enhance their quality of life and wellbeing. This multifaceted intervention also incorporates the use of PainChek’s digital pain assessment.
A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Psychiatry reviewed the impact of this programme on people living with dementia who had not previously responded
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to support in alternative settings or found previous care ineffective in relieving their distress and reducing risks they pose to themselves or others.
The study identified that the introduction of the Reconnect programme, through its interventions based around meaningful activity engagement, pain management and constipation relief, resulted in significant improvements related to people’s distress, psychotropic use, and safeguarding, with a 91.7% reduction (i.e., from 36 to three events) in safeguarding events related to behaviours observed.
Importantly, PainChek is enabling Orchard Care Homes to monitor the pain of individuals in its care, providing staff with a clear picture of when a resident is likely to experience pain.
BETTER HEALTH OUTCOMES
Orchard Care Homes’ Reconnect programme demonstrates how digital technology can be embedded in day-to-day operations and help facilitate better health outcomes for care home residents, enhancing wellbeing for those living with dementia. With around 1.6 million people projected be living with dementia in England and Wales by 2040, it is crucially important that those unable to reliably self-report their pain can have their pain assessed and managed in an effective way.
https://painchek.com
www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
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