Permission is hereby granted for readers to link to this document and to use it for personal educational purposes. This document may not be printed or otherwise downloaded without the permission of the editor . While traditional medicine seeks to cure the patient and prolong death, the intent of hospice is to treat the symptoms of disease to allow the terminally ill patient to die with as much comfort as possible. The primary goal of the hospice team is to minimize the patient's pain and maximize the patient's comfort level while death approaches. Physical Comfort Minimizing the physical pain experienced by many terminally ill patients is a major goal of the hospice team.
Acute pain is pain of a relatively short duration.
Chronic pain, experienced by patients with degenerative joint disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, cancer and other conditions, is experienced constantly and over an indefinite period of time. Terminal patients frequently require treatment for chronic pain. When used properly, analgesics provide tremendous, much-needed relief to the terminal patient. Unfortunately, many health care providers are not knowledgeable about pain control. The patient is then forced to endure pain until the next scheduled dosage, by which time it will take even longer for the drug to take effect because of the increased severity of the pain.