Bethesda, MD (February 2, 2011) –Yvonne D’Arcy, MS, CRNP, CNS, has been awarded the American Journal of Nursing- Book of the Year Award for her book, How to Manage Pain in the Elderly. D’Arcy specializes in pain management and currently is the pain management and palliative care nurse practitioner at Suburban Hospital, where she has worked for the past eight years. 

According to the National Gerontological Nursing Association, pain can affect the quality of life in older adults by limiting their ability to perform activities of daily living and decreasing their involvement in social activities.

How to Manage Pain in the Elderly, written for medical professionals, provides an evidence-based approach to pain-management solutions in older patients.  The handbook delivers clinical tips, case studies, and assessment questions to guide the professional.  

“Based on patterns I saw as a pain management specialist, I felt the concept of pain in the older patient really needed to be addressed,” said D’Arcy, who has more than 14 years of experience as an advanced practice nurse. “Older patients can tolerate pain medication well with established guidelines, especially when medication and dosing are monitored to make sure they do not have side effects.” 

D’Arcy is a frequent contributor to the Pain Solutions column in the Journal for Nurse Practitioners and has written numerous articles for journals and chapters for nursing textbooks.

“How to Manage Pain in the Elderly is an important book for nurses and all health-care practitioners,” said Barbara Jacobs, Senior Director of Nursing Operations at Suburban Hospital. “Yvonne has reached us all with the message that pain is not an acceptable condition of aging.”

How to Manage Pain in the Elderly was among 36 books chosen by the American Journal of Nursing Judges’ panel.

About Suburban Hospital

Suburban Hospital, a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine, is a not-for-profit, community-based hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, that has served Montgomery County and the surrounding area for more than 65 years. Suburban Hospital is distinguished by a cutting-edge stroke program; level II trauma center; centers of excellence in cardiac care, orthopedics and joint replacement surgery, neurosciences and oncology; state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment tools; and affiliations with world-class institutions, including the neighboring National Institutes of Health.  

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