The role of the CNA Pain Assessment Tool (CPAT) in the pain management of nursing home residents with dementia.

Implementation and testing of the CPAT in two hundred fifteen dementia residents of three regional skilled nursing facilities. To examine the effect of incorporating the CPAT into an AMDA long-term care pain management clinical practice guideline on nursing home residents with dementia. To evaluate changes in CPAT scores after treatment for pain.

Evidence-based review of interventions to improve palliation of pain, dyspnea, depression.

This review of the guideline developed by the Clinical Efficacy Subcommittee of the American College of Physicians and the accompanying systematic review offers clinicians evidence-based recommendations for palliative care. Seriously ill patients should be assessed for pain, dyspnea, and depression. Clinicians should use therapies of proven effectiveness to manage pain, depression, and dyspnea, including opioids in patients with unrelieved dyspnea and oxygen for short-term relief of hypoxemia.

Using the Defensive Style Questionnaire to evaluate the impact of sex reassignment surgery on defensive mechanisms in transsexual patients.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of sex reassignment surgery on the defense mechanisms of 32 transsexual patients at two different points in time using the Defensive Style Questionnaire.

Method: The Defensive Style Questionnaire was applied to 32 patients upon their admission to the Gender Identity Disorder Program, and 12 months after they had undergone sex reassignment surgery.

Results: There were changes in two defense mechanisms: anticipation and idealization.

Pain assessment in nursing home residents with dementia: psychometric properties and clinical utility of the CNA Pain Assessment Tool (CPAT).

Objectives: To examine the psychometric properties and clinical utility of the CPAT, an instrument to assess pain in nursing home residents with dementia.

Design: Instrument development and testing.

Setting: Three regional skilled nursing facilities.

Use of the certified nursing assistant pain assessment tool (CPAT) in nursing home residents with dementia.

The purpose of this study was to develop a pain assessment tool utilized by certified nursing assistant (CNA) direct-care providers for nursing home residents with dementia and to examine the impact of such a tool on their function, behavior, or medication use. In the first phase, 41 items from an observational pain assessment tool were correlated with an objective pain "gold standard"; 12 statistically significant items were retained and used in the CNA pain assessment tool. Symmetry analysis was then conducted to determine if this resulted in any significant change in resident function, behavior, or medication use.