Summary

The Western world is facing a crisis. The population is aging dramatically, and soon there will be twice as many older adults as younger counterparts. Clearly, there is a high incidence of pain in the older population, and with this comes a significant burden, including falls, frailty, depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, reduced mobility, and impaired cognitive function. Unfortunately, chronic pain in the older population is often neglected and poorly managed for many reasons, including the expectation that pain is part of the aging process and therefore to be expected; poor assessment practices, hampered by communication problems; limited time for a comprehensive assessment to be carried out; fear of prescribing and administering drugs; and beliefs held by the older person themselves that they should expect to be in pain and therefore do not report it. All of these issues can be addressed with appropriate education and training to enable staff to appropriately apply evidence-based guidelines and effectively manage pain.