The New Zealand medical journal
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Multicenter Study
The use of the Pain Assessment Checklist for Seniors with Limited Ability to Communicate (PACSLAC) by caregivers in dementia care.
Pain is often under-detected and under-treated in nonverbal patients with severe dementia. PACSLAC is a behavioural assessment tool designed to improve the detection of pain in severe dementia. Previous studies on PACSLAC were primarily with qualified nurses in Canada and The Netherlands. This pilot study is aimed to evaluate the inter-rater reliability of the PACSLAC when it is administrated by caregiver staff. ⋯ This pilot study demonstrated PACSLAC has good inter-rater reliability when it is used by caregivers. We believe a baseline PACSLAC could be performed for each patient at the time of admission to a dementia care facility and re-administered on regular intervals to detect pain-related behaviour and to prompt earlier pain management. Future studies with larger samples and collaboration between different centres will be useful in providing normative PACSLAC values in New Zealand.