BACKGROUND The American Psychosocial Oncology Society has developed the first indicators of the quality of psychosocial care for cancer patients. This report describes the initial evaluation of these indicators. METHODS Medical records of 388 colorectal cancer patients first seen by a medical oncologist in 2006 at seven practice sites were reviewed by trained abstractors whose accuracy was do...

BACKGROUND Pain assessment in persons with dementia is well known as a challenging issue to professional caregivers, because of these patients´ difficulties in verbalising pain problems. Within municipal dementia care in Sweden, pain assessment has become problematic for registered nurses, as they have entered a new role in their nursing profession, from being clinical practitioners to becoming...

background and objectives : temporomandibular disorder (tmd) refers to chronic pain of the temporomandibular joint (tmj) associated with headache, neck pain, shoulder pain or back pain. the origin of these pains may be related to tmd. many patients with chronic headache undergo different treatments for long periods of time with no cure. these headaches can be treated with proper diagnosis. this...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Despite pervasive and debilitating pain among elders, it is underassessed and undertreated; and cognitive impairment can add challenges. We assessed the quality of pain care for community-dwelling elderly patients with dementia. METHODS We phone interviewed 203 Veterans Affairs primary care outpatients with dementia and pain and reviewed medical records to score 15 quality ind...

Pain in children is underestimated and undertreated because of lack of pain assessment tools. Pain assessment depends on the cognitive development of the child being tested, clinical context, and pain typology. For children older than age 6 years, pain assessment is based on a self-report. For children younger than age 6 years, behavioral pain scales are needed to assess pain. Numerous pain sca...

Background: Substance P (SP) is a neuropeptide that functions as a neuromodulator. It is released mainly in the brain stem and in nerve endings. Aims: The present study aimed to provide fundamental data that may be applied to the assessment of pain in dogs by evaluating their serum SP concentrations. Methods: Two groups of dogs were designated ...

Although the provision of timely and appropriate analgesia is a primary goal of Emergency Department (ED) staff, pain continues to be undertreated and some evidence supports the existence of pain treatment disparities. Despite strong incentives from accreditation organizations, pain management in the ED may still be inconsistent and problematic. The purpose of this research study was to conduct...