The nurse caring for a terminally ill client with liver cancer underst

The nurse caring for a terminally ill client with liver cancer understands which of the following goals would be most appropriate?

1. Increasingly administer narcotics to oversedate the client and thereby decrease the pain.
2. Continue to change the analgesics until the right narcotic is found that completely alleviates the pain.
3. Adapt the analgesics as the nursing assessment reveals the need for specific med-ications.
4. Withhold analgesics because they are not being effective in relieving discomfort.

ANSWER

ANS: 3
The best choice of treatment often changes as the client’s condition and the characteristics of pain change. It is realistic to expect that a terminally ill client’s need for pain medication will change over time with disease progression. The goal is not to oversedate the client but to provide pain control without excessive sedation. It would be unrealistic to expect that the pain of termi-nal cancer will be completely alleviated. Analgesics should not be withheld, because this would only increase the client’s level of pain. The medication regimen may need to be adapted to meet the client’s needs.