Pain management for dying patients - How to assess needs and provide pharmacologic relief

Many patients have pain at the end of life, but their discomfort may be either unexpressed or met with skepticism by their physicians. A thorough assessment and tailored treatment plan can keep patients with even the most severe pain comfortable in their final days. In this article, Or Abrahm discusses the evaluation of pain of malignant and nonmalignant origin and a pharmacologic approach to relieving it.