A new social media campaign developed by a group from the University of Regina aims to build a bridge between better pain assessment for dementia patients.

See Pain More Clearly was created by Dr. Thomas Hadjistavropoulos and his team after researching ways to improve the quality of life for patients who suffer pains and have limited ability to communicate.

He said their goal with this initiative is to increase awareness with this problem in the general public.

“In long-term care facilities, staff have every good intention to assess pain. But sometimes they are overworked, the resources are very constrained, and other times they don’t have the necessary tools to assess pain in a complex situation,” explained Dr. Hadjistavropoulos.

After conducting his research, Dr. Hadjistavropoulos felt the next step was to establish a social media campaign that helps health professionals, caregivers and family members become familiar with the newest methods.

By using social media, he wants to broadcast his research sooner after discovering that it takes an average of 17 years for research findings to translate to widespread practice.

The idea to create See Pain More Clearly came to him after one of his colleagues had success with their own platform and had a “tremendous impact” in the area of children’s vaccinations.

Now he hopes to he can do the same in his field.”We hope health professionals will benefit from the campaign and look at some of the resources we’re providing, and that policy makers will take notice and develop policies that will advance this problem more systematically.”

The campaign launched on Tuesday to coincide with National Seniors Day in Canada on October 1.