[Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and oncological diseases in residential geriatric care : Pain frequency and selected healthcare features in comparison].

BACKGROUND: Adequate pain management and palliative care structures are of significant importance in residential nursing homes. Whilst professional pain treatment and palliative care measures are frequently implemented for residents with oncological diseases, this is often not the case for residents with neurological disorders. Such a potential undertreatment is even more challenging when the means of interaction and communication with affected persons are aggravated by impairments in cognitive function.

OBJECTIVE: To examine differences in selected health care service characteristics between nursing home residents with Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and residents diagnosed with cancer.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Secondary data analysis of residents' survey and medical record data from 13 nursing homes as part of the study "Action Alliance Pain-free City Münster".

RESULTS: Compared with residents with Parkinson's disease and cancer, nursing home residents with Alzheimer's disease exhibited significantly more severe impairment in cognitive function, less additional pain-associated diagnoses, shorter length of stay in nursing homes and more indications of pain.

CONCLUSION: The generally high level of pain in all observed residents elucidates the principle necessity of adequate pain assessment and an interprofessional pain treatment. Furthermore, there seems to be a still unmet need for specifically adapted pain management strategies especially for the steadily increasing number of people with Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease living in nursing homes. This should be a future high priority task for (nursing) practice and research against the background of the vulnerability of nursing home populations.