A comprehensive assessment of the clinical, psychological, legal, and cultural aspects of dealing with unnecessary pain in the elderly. The authors explore pharmacotherapy (nonopioids, opioids, and adjuvants), interventional strategies, the role of rehabilitation in managing pain in seniors, and the problems of pain management in long-term care. Supplementary features include continuing medical education (CME) certification, a CME posttest and evaluation to be completed and submitted for credit, and an appendix of analgesics that details starting oral doses, maximum daily oral doses, and special considerations for the elderly. 6.5 AMA/PRA category 1 CME credits with completion of included test.

The second edition of the Handbook of Pain Relief in Older Adults: An Evidence-Based Approach expands on the first edition by providing a number of timely new features. Most important of these are the revised recommendations from the American Geriatrics Society on prescribing that reflect the many new agents available since the last guidelines were released in 2001. Additionally, concepts such as synergy in prescribing for older adults have been better delineated in this edition. The most salient features of the original edition have been retained and updated, including the full range of approaches for pain assessment and prevention, interventional strategies, guidance on pharmacotherapy and nonpharmacologic pain relief strategies for seniors, preventive analgesia, the role of rehabilitation in sound pain treatment, legal and public policy issues in pain care for seniors, pain management in long-term care, and even the issue of spirituality as an adjunct to pain management. The second edition also includes a new chapter on resources, which includes organizations, internet websites, and guidance on acquiring additional consultation for pain intervention. Of particular interest is an updated discussion of the effect that electronic medical records and internet-based personal health records will have on pain relief in older adults and a new chapter that serves as a resource guide for patients and caregivers trying to navigate the waters of pain relief assistance. This issue has not been addressed substantively in the pain management literature and the ramifications for older adults are particularly poignant. Comprehensive and practical, the Handbook of Pain Relief in Older Adults: An Evidence-Based Approach (Second Edition) is a comprehensive resource with targeted, practical information that will be of vital importance for all clinicians who provide care for seniors.

Pain Management for Older Adults: A Self-Help Guide is designed specifically for older adults who seek practical solutions for managing their chronic pain. Written by pain researchers and experienced health care professionals, this book offers effective methods and techniques to improve the qualitty of life for people with persistent pain.

From time to time, professional journals and edited volumes devote some of their pages to considerations of pain and aging as they occur among the aged in different cultures and populations. One starts from several reasonable assumptions, among them that aging per se is not a disease process, yet the risk and frequency of disease processes increase with ongoing years. The physical body's functioning and ability to restore all forms of damage and insult slow down, the immune system becomes compromised, and the slow-growing pathologies reach their critical mass in the later years. The psychological body also becomes weaker, with unfulfilled promises and expectations, and with tragedies that visit individuals and families, and the prospect that whatever worlds remain to be conquered will most certainly not be met with success in the rapidly passing days and years that can only culminate in death. Despair and depression coupled with infirmity and sensory and! or motor inefficiency aggravate both the threshold and the tolerance for discomfort and synergistically collaborate to perpetuate a vicious cycle in which the one may mask the other. Although the clinician is armed with the latest advances in medicine and phar macology, significant improvement continues to elude her or him. The geriatric specialist, all too familiar with such realities, usually can offer little else than a hortative to "learn to live with it," but the powers and effectiveness of learning itself have declined.

Seniors take more prescription and over-the-counter drugs than any other group. And more than any other group, seniors assume that pain is a natural part of aging -- now the experts at Prevention magazine prove that it is not. No other book focuses specifically on pain in the elderly. Offering all-natural remedies for more than 100 painful conditions, this reference also identifies the top 20 pains that plague seniors in particular. Any reader with pain problems -- and evidence suggests that over 90 percent of people over 60 have dealt with at least one of these 20 problems -- can easily find the remedy. In addition to this section, the book covers each ailment in three distinct ways: -- Immediate Relief: the first section in each chapter offers options on quick and effective relief-- More Lasting Relief: the chapter then discusses how to gain long-term, non-drug pain relief-- Pain Prevention: the end of the chapter shows how to prevent -- even remove -- pain