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Modules:
Introduction
1. Advance Care Planning
2. Communicating Bad News
3. Whole Patient Assessment
4. Pain Management
5. Assisted Suicide Debate
6. Anxiety, Delirium
7. Goals of Care
8. Sudden Illness
9. Medical Futility
10. Common Symptoms
11. Withholding Treatment
12. Last Hours of Living
13. Cultural Issues
14. Religion, Spirituality
15. Legal Issues
16. Social and Psychological
More About:
Hospice Care
Clergy and Faith Communities
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Why is Knowledge of Pain Management so Important?
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Pain is both prevalent and distressing
- Pain is a frequent problem in any medical practice, whether associated with advanced illness or other acute or chronic conditions
- Most patients with advanced life-threatening illness experience pain
- It is the physical symptom that patients and families fear most
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Pain is often poorly treated
- Although physicians now have very effective treatments at their disposal, pain remains one of the most poorly assessed and treated physical symptoms
- Significant barriers to good pain management that contribute unnecessarily to patient and family debilitation and suffering include:
- Lack of knowledgeable and experienced physicians
- Myths about addiction related to pain management
- Other barriers to adequate pain control that need to be assessed and addressed include:
- Profession-related barriers
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Pain is typically treatable
- Adequate pain control is possible in more than 90% of patients if the therapeutic approaches that are within the purview of all physicians are applied systematically
- Adequate assessment by a knowledgeable physician, often working closely with an interdisciplinary team, can relieve and control pain effectively
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