Overview
Pain is often undertreated and underdiagnosed in older adults. Regular use of short, simple, reliable pain-rating scales provides nurses and physicians with measurable information to establish and modify a pain management plan. This article describes the use of three widely used pain-rating scales: the numeric rating scale, the verbal descriptor scale, and the Faces Pain Scale-Revised. For a free online video demonstrating the use of these scales in older adults, go to http://links.lww.com/A251.