Nausea and other nonpain symptoms in long-term care

Abstract

There is a need to improve the quality of end-of-life care in nursing homes by improving the timely assessment and management of various sources of suffering. Much of the research/discussion in this area has focused on the assessment and treatment of pain. This article reviews the frequency and management of nonpain symptoms in the long-term care setting, particularly focusing on patients at the end of life. Although the long-term care setting presents challenges to effective management, an approach for addressing these challenges is discussed and applied to 3 commonly encountered nonpain symptoms.