Dovehaven is a leading care group that offers a wide range of care services for older adults, specialising in residential and nursing care with an emphasis on high quality dementia and complex care. It looks after 1,183 individuals across its 23 care homes.
From July to December 2024, Dovehaven completed over 165,000 pain assessments using PainChek®.
As a person’s dementia progresses, it can become more difficult for them to be able to self-report their pain experience. Historically, assessing pain for people who cannot verbalise has been challenging and subjective.
PainChek® uses AI and the camera of a smart device to assess a resident’s face, whilst the carer observes the resident to assess their voice, movement, behaviour, activity, and body. This empowers carers to detect pain in residents even when it is not obvious, quantify its severity, and monitor the impact of treatment to optimise care planning.
As a result of optimising pain management, and reducing the pain burden across its services, Dovehaven has seen a 41% reduction in instances of distress and a 58% reduction in resident-to-resident altercations. These altercations require a significant amount of resource in response to investigate the cause, amend care plans accordingly and report safeguarding referrals as required. This process is incredibly important, however extremely resource intensive, taking away time that could be better spent with residents providing meaningful activity.
Following the reduction of distress incidents, the necessity to use benzodiazepines has also reduced. 40% fewer benzodiazepines are currently being used across Dovehaven’s residents.
Where possible, benzodiazepines should be avoided for older individuals as they are associated with well-documented negative side effects, such as the increase in falls and fall-related fractures. They can also be associated with increased cognitive decline for people living with dementia. Research also suggests that there are several factors to indicate that benzodiazepines can increase the risk of pneumonia and supress the immune function.
Combined, these negative side effects paint a concerning picture for older people living in care, as more than 28% of residents in care homes have one or more prescriptions for benzodiazepines.
This emphasis on improved identification and management of pain illustrates the broader and far-reaching improvements in quality that can be achieved.
Jo Hadfield, Head of Quality at Dovehaven, says: “I have been fortunate working for Dovehaven to achieve a career ambition to review and support teams to improve pain management in a social care environment. Since implementation of PainChek® across all Dovehaven Care Homes we have seen a transformation in relation to pain management which has significantly reduced distressed reaction behaviours and PRN benzodiazepine use.”
Tandeep Gill, Senior Business Development Manager at PainChek UK adds: “Dovehaven’s ability to reduce pain across its estate of care homes has brought immense benefits for its residents, staff and the quality of care the provider is able to achieve.
"The reduction of resident-to-resident altercations is significant. These incidents can not only be distressing for those directly involved, but also to other residents in the nearby vicinity who may not know what has happened and why. The changes seen are profound and ensure the overall improvement of people’s experiences in care.”
PainChek now has contracts with more than 1500 aged care facilities across three continents, with more than 8.5m digital pain assessments conducted to date, and is trusted by thousands of nurses, carers, and clinicians.
The company has recently published its Clinical Outcomes for Care Homes whitepaper, which gives an in-depth look at the impact PainChek® has had on care homes across the UK.