Background: As in all elderly individuals, elderly with dementia suffer from pain. Nurses meet a considerable challenge in assessing and measure pain in patients with dementia in order to optimize pain relief. The challenge lies primarily in the patients decreasing ability to communicate needs and experiences; hence do nurses meet difficulties in identifying pain in patients with dementia.

Aim: The aim is to illustrate nurses' experience in pain assessment and pain measurement in patients with dementia. 

Method: A qualitative inductive approach was used and ten registered nurses working in either municipal or county settings were interviewed. Qualitative content was used for analysis.  

Results: The result was based on ten interviews with registered nurses. The results show that assessing pain in patients with dementia is a challenging task. The challenges are primary in the patient´s inability to verbally communicate pain. The result shows varying skills in assessing pain.

Conclusion: In order to optimize the assessment and measurement of pain in patients with dementia organizational preconditions is required. Implications are made that exchange of knowledge between experienced nurses are also made.