Managing Pain in Elders: Challenges and Choices

Jewish Home Lifecare’s 8th Annual Geriatric Palliative Care Conference: Managing Pain in Elders: Challenges and Choices

How we manage pain in the clients/patients/residents we care for significantly impacts their quality of life, and palliative care ensures that the approach to care for each person is individualized. In keeping with our mission of person-centered care, Jewish Home Lifecare hosted the 8th Annual Geriatric Palliative Care Conference on Tuesday, October 26, 2010. The conference focused on the newest research and approaches to the management of pain.

The theme of the conference was “Managing Pain in Elders: Challenges and Choices.” Co-sponsored by the UJA-Federation of New York Jewish Healing and Hospice Alliance, the Lilian and Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the Collaborative for Palliative Care, the MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care, and Jacob Perlow Hospice, the event attracted more than 160 medical professionals, including case managers, social workers, CNAs and nurses.

In the morning, attendees heard presentations from researchers and practitioners from Columbia University, Mt. Sinai Hospital and the University of Connecticut Nursing School on cutting edge topics in palliative care. The importance of environment and the meaning of home was addressed in conjunction with research on how the telling, listening, and writing of stories can aid in memory recuperation and meaning-making until the very end.

A tactical session on communication delineated ways to encourage more complete pain discussions, and a presentation on the cultural aspects of pain illustrated how minority patients are at high risk for poor pain outcomes.

The afternoon featured concurrent breakout sessions covering narrative medicine and skills development; a structured approach to palliative care; rehabilitation medicine as a way to help minimize pain, and CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) and specific holistic applications that can be adapted for symptom relief for elders.

A final plenary session on current legal issues closed the conference. The timeliness of this topic, particularly the long-awaited and recently enacted Family Health Care Decisions Act (FHCDA) was evidenced by the high number of attendees who stayed through the end of the day to be part of this session.

The 8th Annual Geriatric Palliative Care Conference was designed and organized by Eileen R. Chichin, Co-Director, The Greenberg Center on Ethics and Palliative Care; Deidre Downs, Director of Social Work; Dr. Simon Kassabian, Director of Palliative Care; Ellen Lewis, Director of Strategic Workforce Development; Dr. Betty Lim, Palliative Care Project Manager and Laurie Posner, Medical Director, all of Jewish Home Lifecare.

The complete list of speakers and workshops follows:

Speakers:

•KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Rita Charon, MD, MA, PhD — Creating Spaces for Living, or the Many Meanings of Home
•Patricia Bloom, MD, FACP, FAGS — Integrative Health and Palliative Care
•David Leven, JD — What You Need to Know About The New Family Health Care Decisions Act in New York and End-of-Life Decision Making
•Deborah McDonald, PhD –Talking With Older Adults About Their Pain
•Mary Curry Narayan, MSN, RN, HHCNS-BC, CTN, COS-C — Culture’s Effect on Pain Assessment and Management

Workshops:

•Rebecca Brown, MD – Rehabilitation Therapy – Less Pain, More Gain
•Eileen R. Chichin, PhD, RN and Joann P. Reinhardt, PhD — Introducing Palliative Care to Families: Using a Structured Approach
•Marsha Hurst, PhD and Patricia B. Stanley, MA, MBA – Narrative Medicine and Palliative Care: A Workshop for Partnering in Care
•Lucia McBee, LCSW, MPH, CYI – When You Can’t Fix It – Complementary Approaches to Pain Management

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