Todd Monroe

Gender, pain and dementia

Understanding sex differences in pain perception could lead to more targeted and effective pain assessment and management strategies in older adults with Alzheimer’s disease.

Pain and Alzheimer’s disease

Clinicians should use a structured interview in people with Alzheimer’s disease to identify pain that might be otherwise overlooked.

Elderly woman holding hands with young caretaker

Vanderbilt study shows people with Alzheimer’s have lower ability to perceive pain

People with Alzheimer’s disease don’t perceive pain as readily as healthy older adults, and this may lead to delays and underreporting of pain. This alteration in pain detection may be one reason that people with Alzheimer’s disease and pain tend to be undermedicated and suffer unnecessarily, a trans-institutional group of Vanderbilt researchers reported recently in BMC Medicine.

VUSN Alzheimer’s study to explore perception of pain

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (VUSN) has been awarded a four-year $660,633 grant from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute on Aging to study how psychophysical responses to acute experimental thermal pain differ between older adults with and without Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).

Image of pain pills (iStock Photo)

Support needed to help nurses tackle substance abuse

Support and treatment, not punishment, are needed to help the 10 to 20 percent of U.S. nurses and nursing students who may have problems with substance abuse and addiction.