Many Nursing Home Residents in the UK Suffer from Chronic Pain

According to a British study, people living in residential homes are suffering from chronic pain. The work by the Picker Institute Europe for the Patients' Association discovered that nearly two out of five residents experienced constant pain. Out of the 77 people who were questioned, the vast majority said that a doctor or nurse had not even spoken to them about how to relieve their pain.

One 95-year-old woman said that: "I will cry every night nearly, the pain is so bad". A further 8% describe their pain as "excruciating". The interviewees, who lived in 24 different nursing homes across England said that even when there were discussions about pain management, this took place between doctors and nursing staff, rather than with the residents themselves.

Chronic pain is a very common complaint from elderly people. This often reduces the quality of life for sufferers. The research, which was partially funded by Napp Pharmaceuticals, found that 90% of respondents who were questioned said it put limits on the type of activities that they could participate in and 38% said that they felt depressed and miserable. Pain also means that many sufferers cannot enjoy a good night's sleep and their mobility is limited. Some also admitted that they had contemplated suicide.

The study found that only one person who was interviewed was taking any kind of pain medication. Other aids, such as physiotherapy were also in limited supply. The report went on to add that:"Chronic pain is widespread amongst the residents of care homes. This leads both staff and residents to accept pain as an inevitable consequence of growing old.The high level of stoicism amongst residents means that they often suffer in silence, yet care home staff are failing to ask residents about their pain."

Katherine Murphy, who works for the Patients Association said that: "The results of the research are disgraceful. It is outrageous that so many residents are left in chronic pain unnecessarily. It is clear that action needs to be taken to stop older people being deprived of the best possible quality of life."

In addition, Deborah Klee, policy manager at Help the Aged said: "It is the responsibility of local primary care trusts (PCTs) and GPs (General Practitioners) to ensure that older care home residents have access to specialist medical supervision, especially for long term conditions such as arthritis. Instead, older people end up 'cut off' from their GP of choice once they enter a care home and not given the same medical priority as people living in their own home."

Sheila Scott, chief executive of the National Care Association, which represents 2,000 care providers including care homes said that she was willing to listen to the patients' representatives who had any concerns. She said: "We will certainly talk to our members about it and see if there's anything we need to do to put in place some form of training. It's very important to us that nursing homes get the full support of the NHS (National Health Service) and that hasn't always been the case."

Dr Graham Archard, of the Royal College of GPs said that the college was working with the Patients Association as well as the British Pain Society in order to come up with guidelines on managing chronic, persistent pain. He said: "Many people think they have to tolerate pain as a result of getting older but we want to dispel that belief. The vast majority of older people can receive significant help in controlling their pain or in making lifestyle changes to help reduce their pain and make living with pain more tolerable."

A Department of Health spokesman said that it is the duty of all nursing homes to provide residents with proper access to any care they needed from hospitals and community health service, "according to their individual needs".

Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6471485.stm