What started as a new way to assess pain is now part of everyday clinical practice.
PainChek® has now passed 20 million pain assessments globally, a reflection of how pain is being recognised, understood and acted on every day, across care settings worldwide.
Each pain assessment means pain recognised earlier, a clinical decision made with better insights, and a person heard who might otherwise have been missed. That matters most for people living with dementia, who often cannot tell us how they’re feeling. This is where PainChek’s mission comes to life: giving a voice to those who cannot verbalise their pain.
Our mission is now embedded in everyday care across more than 2,000 organisations worldwide. PainChek® is approved as a medical device in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the European Union, Singapore and Malaysia, and integrates with more than 30 leading technology partners — enabling consistent use across different care settings and workflows.
Closing one of healthcare’s most overlooked clinical gaps
Pain is one of the most under-recognised and undertreated conditions in aged care. For people living with dementia, unseen pain shapes everything: quality of life, medication decisions, behaviour, and the basic experience of care.
PainChek® was built to close this gap. By combining AI-enabled facial analysis with a standardised observational framework, it provides an objective method of pain assessment and a structured way to track a person’s pain over time.
In Australia and New Zealand alone, the pace of adoption tells its own story:
- The first 10 million assessments took 6.5 years
- The next 10 million took just over one year
That acceleration reflects growing trust from clinicians, stronger integration into everyday workflows, and increasing recognition of the importance of accurate, consistent pain assessment.
Across care settings globally, that scale translates into:
- More consistent pain recognition
- Earlier intervention
- Better-informed clinical decisions
- Improved quality of life for residents
- Stronger support for medication management, falls prevention and earlier escalation
- More comfort, dignity and engagement for the people in care
PainChek® supports two types of assessment: AI-enabled facial analysis for people who cannot self-report, and the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) for those who can. Today, NRS assessments, added to the app in 2021, nearly match AI-enabled assessments, reflecting how PainChek® enables consistent, objective pain management across entire care populations: those who cannot self-report, those who can, and those whose ability fluctuates.
A milestone, not a finish line
Reaching 20 million assessments means more people, particularly those at risk of having their pain missed, are now being seen, understood, and supported.
Care teams have embedded PainChek® into everyday practice, including:
- Standardising assessments across residential and home care, supporting routine monitoring and timely follow-up
- Daily care and medication rounds, enabling more frequent assessments and earlier intervention
- Complex hospital-level aged care, strengthening structured assessment and communication with GPs
- Memory support units, improving pain identification for residents who cannot self-report and communication with families
- Organisation-wide quality improvement and regulatory compliance
This is part of a broader shift across aged care, hospital and home care settings globally. Every assessment is an act of advocacy for the person in care – and a step towards better outcomes for residents, their families, care teams and the organisations that support them.
“Reaching 20 million assessments is a reflection of PainChek® being embedded in care delivery globally. Just as importantly, it represents people, particularly those living with dementia, having their pain recognised earlier, better understood and responded to more consistently.
But this number isn’t only about technology. It reflects the work of care teams around the world – their advocacy, their listening, and their commitment to truly understanding the people in their care. PainChek® is no longer an emerging innovation; it is now a standard of care globally, helping improve outcomes for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.”
– Philip Daffas, CEO, PainChek
Start a conversation with our team
To learn more about how PainChek® could enable best-practice pain management within your organisation, book a one-on-one session with a member of our team.
FAQs
PainChek® is an AI-enabled pain assessment and management platform designed to support more consistent pain recognition and monitoring across care settings.
For people who cannot reliably self-report pain, including many people living with dementia, PainChek® combines facial analysis technology with a clinically validated observational framework to help care teams identify and track pain over time.
It also supports Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) assessments for people who can self-report.
Pain is often under-recognised in people living with dementia because they may not be able to clearly communicate what they are feeling.
Unidentified pain can impact comfort, behaviour, mobility, sleep and overall quality of life.
Regular, structured pain assessment helps care teams recognise potential pain earlier and support more informed care decisions.
PainChek® is used across aged care, home care, hospitals and memory support settings worldwide.
Care teams incorporate it into daily workflows including routine monitoring, medication rounds, clinical reviews and quality improvement programs to support more consistent pain assessment and communication across teams.
Reaching 20 million assessments reflects the growing adoption of structured pain assessment in everyday care.
Each assessment represents an opportunity for pain to be recognised, monitored and acted on earlier – particularly for people who may otherwise struggle to communicate their pain.
The milestone also highlights the increasing integration of PainChek® into clinical practice across global care settings.
