Physical Care
At the end of life, physical care is guided more by patients’ symptoms, such as breathlessness, than by signs, such as respiratory rate or oxygen saturations. However, understanding the cause of symptoms helps guide their treatment, and focused physical examination to elicit relevant signs remains important. The most common physical symptoms at the end of life are pain, breathlessness, agitation, nausea and vomiting, and constipation.
Up to 96% of dying patients experience pain.[13] Although often feared, particularly by patients with cancer, pain is also common in non-malignant diseases.[13] The VOICES survey, the first national study of bereaved families, reported that only 33% of relatives of patients who died in hospital said that pain had been completely relieved, compared with 60% of patients who died in a hospice.[14] Opioids, usually morphine sulphate, are the mainstay of pain relief at the end of life. The LCP documentation includes simple algorithms to guide opioid prescription (fig 2). For more complex pain control, including advice on increasing doses, opioid dose conversions, and opioid use in renal or liver disease, useful resources include the ward pharmacist and hospital palliative care team.