Evidence-Based Pain Assessment

Research has shown that there are several organizations and active advocates who are working on pain management problems to face this public health issue. The following establishments involve: The American Academy of Pain Medicine, Institute of Medicine, and American Pain Society and many for-profit and nonprofit organizations are also working at different level towards pain management. Most specifically, the IOM has been devoted to studying pain and its consequences on individuals, the healthcare system, as well as on government (IOM, 2011).

“Pain is much more than a physical sensation caused by a specific stimulus. An individual's perception of pain has important affective (emotional), cognitive, behavioral, and sensory components that are shaped by past experience, culture, and situational factors. The nature of the stimulus for pain can be physical, psychological, or a combination of both.” (Potter, Perry, Stockert, Hall, & Peterson, 2014 p. 141) As stated by Potter et al, the different natures of pain are dealt with differently depending on many factors. Knowing this, treating pain can be very difficult as there is no single or clear cut way of measuring it; “Even though the assessment and treatment of pain is a universally important health care issue,

The selected policy Essence of Care 2010: Benchmarks for the Prevention and Management of Pain, includes the latest benchmarks on the management of pain and its prevention. It presents up to date reviewed views, with the aim to deliver

No evidence exists to suggest that older individuals perceive pain to a lesser degree or that sensitivity is diminished. Although pain is a common experience among individuals 65 years of age and older, it is not a normal process of aging. Pain indicates pathology or injury. Pain should never be considered something to tolerate or accept in one's later years.

Nursing assessment is a substantial way of gathering physiological, psychological, spiritual, and emotional condition of the patient. It creates a whole picture of an individual and assist the health care providers to formulate a diagnosis. Assessing the comfort of the patient is equally important as taking the blood pressure or temperature. Pain is the fifth (5th) vital sign that is subjective in nature when performing an assessment of a patient. Various studies were conducted in finding the most appropriate evidence-based nursing practice in assessing and managing the pain of a cognitively impaired patient, whether it is acute or chronic or the underlying cause is cancer or post-operative incision. As emphasized by Song, Eaton, Gordon, Hoyle, and Doorenbos (2015), it is vital to ensure that “pain management is based on the best evidence” (p. 456). Perhaps knowing the causes of inability to assess and manage the pain in a cognitively impaired patient would give a clearer understanding of the practice.

As mentioned above, opioids are extremely helpful in killing acute and cancer pain. Because opioid receptors are G-protein coupled reactions, the inhibitory G-protein is usually coupled or attached with the receptors (Ghelardini et al., 2015, page 219). The onset of reaction in inhibit the pain is rapid and effective due to multiple inhibitory actions at the terminal site (refer to the previous section of mechanism of action). Besides, the interaction of opioids gradually increases the threshold of pain neuron as well as attenuates the pain subjective evaluation (Ghelardini et al., 2015, page 220).

Pain, which is defined in its widest sense as an emotion which is the opposite of pleasure (White, 2004, p.455), is one of the major symptoms of cancer, affecting a majority of sufferers at some point during their condition (De Conno & Caraceni, 1996, p.8). The World Health Organization (WHO, 2009, online) suggests that relief from pain may be achieved in more than 90 percent of patients;

In conclusion pain management is an important impact on patient practice as well as education and knowledge. Although the study did prove to have been beneficial I found the results to be inconclusive as they were generally biased according to the perception of the patient on the individually nurses’ influence and actions toward the management of pain. Every nurse in each generation can learn the same information and the same execution it is what the nurse chooses to apply of his or her own attitude that will determine how the patients will perceive their care and this is with any study being performed on the nursing practice with patient.

‘Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage’ (International association for the study of pain 2014). Pain can be made up of complex and subjective experiences. The experience of pain is highly personal and private, and can not be directly observed or measured from one person to the next (Mac Lellan 2006). According to the agency for health care policy and research 1992, an individuals self-report of pain is the most reliable indicator of its presence. This is also supported by Mc Caffery’s definition in 1972, when he said ‘Pain is whatever the experiencing patient says it is, existing whenever he says it does’.

Many people around the world have used medication to treat a medical issue, many individuals use medication daily to treat various issues and reasons including but not limited to diseases, disorders, for life, and pain management. Pain is an interesting concept, as the sensation is subjective to each individual, making it difficult to define. Anatomically, pain can be explained in steps: contact, reception, transmission, and receiving. First there is a stimulus; it can be pressure, puncture, a burn, etc. Then a nerve senses the stimulus and transmits a signal through neurons in the central nervous system. Finally, the brain receives the signal and decides how to respond. Everyone in their lifetime will experience pain to some degree, from stubbing

At the completion of the study, de Roos et al. reported that of the nine participants that completed the treatment, four participants reported a decrease in pain intensity, four participants reported being pain free, and one participant reported no improvement in pain, with an overall significant decrease in mean pain scores compared to before the treatment (P=0.00) (de Roos et al., 2010, p. 68). A long term follow up was completed at an average of 2.8 years since treatment completion in which six of the nine participants reported a further reduction in pain and were pain free, two participants’ pain level was the same since completion of the treatment, one participant had an

Pain management is an essential aspect of nursing which allows nurses to deal with chronic pain patients. Pain does not only have a physical impact on patients, rather it also has an emotional effect due to which it’s proper and on time management is necessary. I have chosen this topic since it would allow me to know more about chronic pain and therapies used for its effective management. This does not only help patients in quick recovery, it also allows the hospitals to discharge patients quickly. The purpose of this paper is to know about efficiency of pain management technique and therapies being used by nurses.

Pain is a significant public health problem impacting millions of people’s worldwide. It’s a distressing feeling affects multidimensional aspect of life; physical, social, spiritual and emotional. Pain is considered a complex phenomena and the most subjective experience. Mostly health care providers are unable to precisely determine the intensity of a patient’s pain; since that there is no any test or physical finding for pain. For these reasons, assessments of pain should be based when possible, on the patient’s self-report, and the health care providers should not underestimated the patient complaint of pain, and try to manage pain in a proper professional way. However placebo use in place of effective pain medication to manage pain is a controversial issue which has been greatly recognized as unethical, ineffective, and harmful. (Zalon, Constantino, Andrews, 2008)

Chronic Pain is an interesting problem in society today. The exact cause of Chronic Pain is not the same in every patient. In fact most patients present with different symptoms and associated pathologies, such as the strong link with depression. Treatment of Chronic Pain is often performed a single practitioner whether that be a Medical Doctor, Chiropractor, Nutritionist, or an alternative health care professional. Chronic Pain is often extremely complex, because of this treatment needs to be multidimensional. Effective care of Chronic Pain requires the collective cooperation of health care professionals

The quality of life has become more and more significant in the management of cancer. Patients with cancer are surviving longer due to technology advancements in being able to detect the cancer early. Because of this patients are suffering with unmanageable pain during illness and treatment. This represents the failure of the multidisciplinary team. A plan must be put into place in dealing with pain management.