PainChek

PainChek® is transforming pain management to help give a voice to those who cannot verbalise their pain. The world’s first pain assessment tool that has regulatory clearance in Australia and Europe, PainChek® uses facial recognition and artificial intelligence to detect pain—providing carers with three important benefits: 1. The ability to identify the presence of pain, when pain isn’t obvious 2. To quantify the severity of pain, and; 3. To monitor the effectiveness of pain treatment and make adjustments as required. Pain often goes unrecognised in people with communication difficulties such as dementia. Although tools exist to assess pain, they are often subjective, paper-based and under-utilized. HOW IT WORKS PainChek® is a secure smartphone or tablet based medical device that uses artificial intelligence and your input, to assess a person's level of pain. PainChek® provides a pain score in real time, which will help you gauge whether treatment is required. This information is then securely stored in the cloud and if you chose to, can be shared with your GP or healthcare professional. PainChek® allows you, the carer to identify and measure a person's level of pain and supports you to assess and manage a person's pain experience. PainChek® calculates a pain score and intensity (ie No Pain, Mild, Moderate or Severe). This then allows you, the carer to intervene if pain is present and manage pain accordingly. PainChek® is currently being used by professional care providers in residential Aged Care facilities and in home-care settings across Australia. Access is granted with each institution via a license agreement. Soon, family carers will be able to access the app via the Shared Care Program. That is, professional care providers that provide in-home care services to patients, will be able to extend their PainChek® license to a designated family carer. This license will enable a family carer to conduct pain assessments with PainChek® to provide a continuum of care between professional care sessions. To request more information on the shared care programme, please email [email protected] CLINICAL STUDIES Results from clinical studies conducted in Australian residential Aged Care centres, have been published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and the Journal of Pain Research. The published articles indicates that PainChek® is a valid and reliable pain assessment tool for people with moderate to severe dementia who can no longer self-report their pain (1,2) and that it offers significant advantages over the current pain assessment methods (2). 1. Hoti, Kreshnik & Atee, Mustafa & Hughes, Jeffery. (2018). Clinimetric properties of the electronic Pain Assessment Tool (ePAT) for aged-care residents with moderate to severe dementia. Journal of Pain Research. Volume 11. 1037-1044. 10.2147/JPR.S158793. 2.Mustafa Atee, et al. Pain Assessment in Dementia: Evaluation of a Point-of-Care Technological Solution. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 60 (2017) 137–150.