How do you know if your caree with dementia is in pain? Are there alternatives to medications to manage pain? Can you manage your caree’s pain effectively at home? When does pain signal a more serious problem?
When your caree is in pain (or when you think your caree is in pain), your unanswered questions about what to do become your source of pain. Today, help is on the way.
Partners Against Pain®, a national pain management education program, has teamed with Lee Woodruff, NY Times best-selling author and caregiver to her husband, Bob Woodruff, ABC news anchor critically injured in Iraq in 2006. Lee and Partners Against Pain® educate family caregivers through a resource they’ve created called Caregiver Cornerstones. The resource provides information, encouragement and tools to help you meet the unique challenges you face managing your caree’s pain.
Lee has offered to answer your questions about managing your caree’s pain. So, email me your questions before Saturday about managing your caree’s pain. Or, simply post your questions in our comments section below. I’ll forward your questions to Lee and then will post her answers for you on the site.
Thanks very much to Lee for her help!
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You are a disruptor. The delivery of health care starts with you, continues because of you, and ends with you. Let's disrupt together to make the world better for family caregivers. 
Bette
I’m so glad to read this! It became apparent last year, when my mother had a knee replacement, that she could not explain where her pain levels were. I would get very frustrated when she was in rehab. because the nurse would come blazing through to check on my mother, and would ask her: on a scale of 1-10, how is your pain level? Although, my mother appeared to be in a lot of pain, she would always say, “4″. I would generally have to explain to each nurse that she did not understand the idea of 1-10.
I think it’s so sad that unless an advocate is there to decipher what is needed, our carees may suffer pain that they do not need to experience. I almost think it is easier to manage pain at home, especially when resources such as “Partners Against Pain” are available.
Is there another way to prompt a patient with dementia to be able to describe their pain?, and shouldn’t doctors and nurses working with dementia patients be educated in this area as well? It would be comforting to witness dementia patients receiving the extra attention they need, instead of needing to default to a caregiver; or to watch someone move so quickly the patient’s true needs are skimmed over.
My mother suffers from dementia and experiences a lot of pain daily from arthritis, as well as muscle spasms caused by a stroke. Thank you.