Barriers to the management of pain in dementia care.

Pain in people with dementia is increasingly recognised as both underassessed and undertreated. This review discusses the main barriers to effective assessment and management of pain in this population, strategies to overcome these barriers, and the implications of such strategies for practitioners and researchers. There appear to be gaps in nursing knowledge and inaccurate beliefs about pain in dementia, and further education may address these. More research is necessary to explore barriers and develop further evidence-based strategies to tackle them. Nurses need to be aware of these barriers and become active in overcoming them.