PAIN PREVALENCE AND PAIN TREATMENTS FOR RESIDENTS IN OREGON NURSING-HOMES

The Client Care Monitoring Unit of Oregon's Senior and Disabled Servic es Division developed and conducted a study with survey-generated info rmation to describe the prevalence of pain and the effectiveness of pa in interventions for residents of Oregon nursing home facilities. Fort y-four percent of sampled residents who were identified as having pain management needs were found to have problematic treatment regimens. R eports of surveyors' experiences during information collection and rev iew of the Medicare/Medicaid recertification reports of the sampled fa cilities revealed that lack of assessment, and reevaluation of the eff ectiveness of treatments for pain were the chief contributing factors that led to these findings.