During thelast twenty years, a great progress has been achieved in pain treatment. However, patients still often suffer from strong, and even unbearable pain. Population nowadays is getting older, due to a prolonged lifespan. Naturally, number of hospitalizations of elderly people increases. This population is commonly associated with sensory impairments (e. g. hearing and vision impairment), as well as with cognitive, demential impairments of which Alzheimer's disease is the most severe one. Therefore, it is evident that communication with these patients is more difficult, which means that the pain assessment is more difficult as well. It requires special attention, education, and tools able to achieve most precise evaluation. The process is of a great importance, because pain assessment represents the basis of a quality pain control, and is a prerequisite for adequate treatment directed towards reduction of complications, faster recovery, and financial savings. The aim of this study was to determine metric characteristics (reliability and validity) of the Abbey pain scale in the assessment of pain among Croatian population of elderly patients with hampered communication. Also, study examined a correlation between an estimated acute pain experience and the effectiveness of analgesia in the same. The sample consisted of 31 patients aged 65 and more, hospitalized at University Hospital Center „Sestre milosrdnice“ Clinic for Traumatology. Pain was evaluated by using the Abbey pain scale, which had been developed by prof. Jennifer Abbey and her associates from Queensland University, Australia (Abbey et al., 2004). The results were compared with the self-report of the pain intensity according to VAS scale. Mental status of patients was evaluated by MMSE. Reliability of the scale in this research was confirmed by the Chrombach coefficient of internal consistency. Its value (0,561) is considered acceptable. Moreover, if the „physical changes“ particle of the questionnaire was omitted, the reliability of the Abbey pain scale would increase to 0,7, which would qualify it as satisfactorily reliable and more homogenous. Because of the small number of participants, validity of the Abbey pain scale was correlated with patient's self-assessment. The correlation coefficient of 0,612 means that there Marica Jerlekovic: Primjena Abbey-skale za procjenu akutne perioperativne boli (diplomski rad) 8 is less than 1% probability that this correlation was caused by coincidence. The correlation between the estimation of Abbey pain scale after analgesia and VAS scales after analgesia (r 0.739; sig 0.00) is high and significant. The results of pain intensity measured before and after analgesia also show that Abbey pain scale in older age patients with hampered communication is a useful tool. Intensity prior to analgesia was 13 ± 3, and after it 9 ± 2. The t-test showed that the reduction was statistically significant (P<0,000). The overall results show that the Abbey pain scale has good metric characteristics of validity and reliability, and therefore is a good tool for assessing pain in older age patients with hampered communication. Its use is associated with satisfactory analgesia among the investigated population.