Abstract
The article highlights how chronic pain and dementia are highly prevalent with age and therefore often occur together in older patients. However, both dementia and chronic pain are frequently underdiagnosed, particularly in patients with cognitive impairment.
Proper use of analgesics may have an important impact on the quality of life of persons living with dementia (and their family caregivers), and may also lead to a reduction in the prescription of antipsychotic drugs, which are known to have many sideeffects, and which should be used cautiously and only when necessary, especially for persons with dementia. Two case studies of older patients are presented: A man with Parkinson's disease and cognitive impairment who suffered a trauma and for whom appropriate analgesic medication helped to facilitate his successful rehabilitation.
The second case is a lady with advanced (yet undiagnosed) dementia with neuropsychiatric symptoms. Appropriate analgesic medication improved her quality of life, as well as the neuropsychiatric symptoms that were originally attributed to dementia.