Rheumatic diseases in the elderly: assessing chronic pain.

This article will discuss the assessment of chronic pain in older patients. First, the epidemiology and impact of chronic pain in the elderly will be addressed. Next, common barriers to pain assessment will be reviewed. An effective approach to pain assessment in the older patient will then be described, including important pearls for history-taking and the physical examination, as well as recommendations for the evaluation of functional status and psychosocial well-being. The article will conclude with a review of multidimensional and unidimensional pain assessment tools and a discussion of methods for pain assessment in the cognitively impaired.