A recent meta-analysis found that palliative care interventions were associated with statistically and clinically significant improvements in patient quality of life (QoL) and symptom burden.1
Mary Lynn McPherson, PharmD, and Russell Portenoy, MD, discuss how palliative and hospice care helps patients and families transition to end of life care, including appropriate pain management.
Pain management strategies in the palliative care setting must take into account barriers to appropriate pain management. Article describes these strategies.
Despite the availability of a wide variety of effective pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments for pain, understanding of pain remains a significant problem in nursing homes and hospices.
The prevalence of pain in terminally ill patients requires that physicians acquire the skills necessary to provide palliative pain treatment at end of life.