Research reveals that older people continue to experience much suffering from acute and chronic pain conditions.People with cognitive impairment receive less analgesia than their cognitively intact peers.Postoperative pain assessment with older people in the acute hospital setting remains a challenge.Context and culture have a significant impact of pain assessment practices.Due to a paucity of research exploring how pain assessment and management practices with cognitively impaired older people may be realised in the acute hospital setting, there is a need for further research to be conducted.