The Pain Thermometer (PT) assesses pain by asking patients to indicate the intensity or severity of their pain on a diagram of a thermometer. It is a version of a verbal descriptor scale that visually represents increasing degrees of pain along the thermometer. Adjectives describing pain (ranging from "no pain" to "pain as bad as it could be") correspond to different points on the thermometer diagram. The PT can be used for patients with moderate to severe cognitive impairments as well as for patients who have trouble with verbal communication.