Transforming Pain Assessment with AI: A New Era of Pain Management for Non-Verbal Residents

42% of residents in assisted living have a diagnosis of moderate to severe dementia. How do we make sure our residents are pain-free? When there are underlying communication challenges, how do we ensure that our pain assessment is accurate, consistent and minimizes the subjectivity of the assessor?

This session explores how two pioneering U.S. facilities, Iowa's Oaknoll Retirement Residence and Meth-Wick Community, became the first North American providers to implement PainChek®, an AI-powered pain assessment tool originally developed in Australia. After this session attendees will understand the limitations of traditional observational scales and gain competence in using AI-driven tools to improve pain detection, assessment accuracy, and clinical decision-making in this vulnerable population.

PainChek® combines automated facial recognition with smart digital checklists to identify pain behaviors in non-verbal individuals, offering a more objective and consistent alternative to traditional observational scales. Attendees will learn about the implementation journey, operational benefits and clinical outcomes including improved pain management indicators and reductions in falls, frailty & drug use.

This session presents findings from a multicenter study validating PainChek®, an AI-powered pain assessment tool for older adults with moderate-to-severe dementia who can no longer self-report. These findings were the basis for an application to the FDA for regulatory clearance. If successful, PainChek® will become the first FDA-cleared pain assessment app for use with people who can’t reliably self-report pain – such as those living with dementia.