Hospice Expert
April Smith is the marketing director for South Wind Hospice, which serves 17 counties...read more
- How to Choose a Hospice
- Hospice: The 4 Levels of Care
- Hospice: How Chaplains Help
- Hospice: What to Expect
- The 5 Stages of Dealing with Grief: What to Expect
- Hospice: The Interdisciplinary Team
- 3 Big Misconceptions About Hospice
- The Role of Hospice Care in Pain Management
- Hospice: Discover a Free Medicare Benefit
- Hospice: Serving the Whole Unit—Patient, Family, Friends and Physicians
- Hospice: Getting Back Control of Your Life
Hospice
The Role of Hospice Care in Pain Management
Print
Email
Comments (5)
A major fear people have of dying is that they’ll be in pain. Hospice eases that fear by providing palliative care with an emphasis on pain control. The main objective is to relieve symptoms that interfere with one’s quality of life. Hospice manages emotional and spiritual pain in addition to physical pain. By using a combination of medications, counseling and therapy, hospice has a very high success rate of easing a patient’s pain. Some families worry about their loved ones being so drugged that they are unable to communicate or are unaware of what’s happening. Although this can happen, it’s rare. Fortunately, hospice nurses are capable of providing strong medications and high dosages that will provide comfort without impairing the patient’s alertness.
Hospice supports the Pain Care Bill of Rights, which states that as a person with pain, you have a right to:
- Have your report of pain taken seriously and to be treated with dignity and respect by doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care professionals.
- Have your pain thoroughly assessed and promptly treated.
- Be informed by your health care provider about what may be causing your pain, possible treatments, and the benefits, risks, and cost of each.
- Participate actively in decisions about how to manage your pain.
- Have your pain reassessed regularly and your treatment adjusted if your pain hasn’t been eased.
- Be referred to a pain specialist if your pain persists.
- Get clear and prompt answers to your questions, take time to make decisions, and refuse a particular type of treatment if you choose.
Spreading the word—
April Smith
Posted in Hospice & Palliative Care, Hospice: April Smith, Pain Management
My father recently began hospace, for cancer, and i think hes holding back telling his doctors about the pain so he doesn’t look weak. Can they bring in a hypnotherpist or something to convince him to take the mediicne?
Dear JoeGall,
First of all, he should not be ashamed or feel weak because he’s experiencing pain. Cancer takes a toll on the body and can cause a person to be in a lot of pain. That’s one of the benefits of hospice; the staff has experience with this and is very good at symptom control and pain management. Unfortunately, if he doesn’t tell them how much pain he’s in, then they can’t treat it. I would express this concern to his hospice nurse. He or she may have ways of getting him to talk. Or maybe talk to your father and let him know that what he is feeling is normal and it’s okay to request more meds for his pain. I’m not sure if hypnotherapy will be necessary or helpful in this situation, but I would definitely talk to his hospice. They don’t want him to be in pain either and will try to help in any way they can.
April
my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 2 months ago. he is in alot of pain and was given morphine patches to wear plus liquid morphine under the tongue and liquid anxiety medicine under the tongue.he is either sleeping or awake and very very agitated,mean,hallucinating,talking weird to the point we do not know what to do for him. should we cut back the meds or what ? it is awful to see him in either state of mind. can anyone offer us any suggestions as to any way to medicate him differently or with some other meds that would work for the pain without all these horrible side effects.thank you trudy S.L.C. Utah
I have nothing but praises for Capital Hospice Care staff who came into our lives mid February 2008 after our brother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which has spread. They were prompt, passionate, concerned as they listened to each suggestion, idea or criticism my family had. But after read how their main focus is to manage patient’s pain I decided to write. Pancreatic cancer has a known reputation for being very painful and most days James’ (my brother) pain is so severe he either knee on the bed or stand with his body bent over. Although he has only complained verbally few times, pain is written all over his face, When it’s apparent that his pain’s severe we always follow up with a call to our hospice nurse. Normally it’s suggested that we give him megamorphone and wait one hour to see if the pain subsides. Most instances there is no change but not one of the hospice nurses has suggested increasing his pain meds. In addition to the many drugs he takes he is also on Methadone maintainance receiving 85MG a day. If Hospice could administer his Methadone (which is in the works) might it be better to increase his Methadone and eliminate the Megamorphone which does not appear to be working all that well anyway? It is my understanding that Methadone by design will block the effects of other opriates. Which explains why after taking three (30) sometimes four Megamorphone his pain still persist. I intend to suggest increasing his Methadone intake to hospice nurse this morning and ask that his dosage be spreaded out to a morning, evening and maybe another at night. Let me know what your feelings are on this subject.
This pt. needs a thorough pain assessment. Likely his daily Methadone maintenence should be changed to the regimen Methadone is used for in pain management which is a q 8 to 12 hr dosing, best is q 8 in highter doses. His breakthrough MSIR can be added up and used to determine his Methadone dose as that likely needs to be increased q 5-7 days till he isn’t needing as frequent MSIR doses. He may need adjuctive meds as a steroid, or neuropathic agent to help the pain. Methadone does not block the effects of other opioids. Most patients are on Methadone with a different immediate release opioid for breakthrough pain such as morphine, oxycodone, or hydromorphone and these are effective in appropriate doses. Please seek help as this pain regimen needs tweeking for good pain control thus better quality of life with this difficult disease.