If you are a family member or health professional of a person with severe dementia who has suffered from unrecognized or undertreated pain and you would like your story to appear on our website, we would love to hear from you. Please send us a summary of the story along with your name, email address and other information so that we can contact you for more details, if needed.  Generally, we will change the names and identifying information to make sure that the privacy of the person with dementia and of others involved in the story are protected. Although we will make an effort to publish many stories on the website, we may not be able to publish all of them. For more information contact Louise Castillo. 

"Our parents both suffered with Alzheimer’s disease and passed away in 2018.

As a retired health professional, and their primary caregiver, my biggest fear was that Mom or Dad would experience pain that they could not tell us about that would not be identified, thus causing them great distress

These considerations were top of mind for our family:

• Effective pain management is considered a human right by the Canadian Pain Society and many national/international organizations..."

"Let me start by saying that my wife is the later stages of dementia. She has early onset Alzheimer’s. She is now 62 years-old and has had aphasia for a couple of years..."

"My husband are I are well acquainted with the challenge of managing severe chronic pain in the dementia patient. We have cared for my mother for just over five years. She has a severe spinal stenosis and osteoarthritis and is one of the lucky few allowed to keep a modest regimen of opioid medication for improved quality of life..."