We Need to Talk About Death - Ease My Pain

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Joan Bakewell and her panel explore one of our greatest fears at the end of life - pain.

Pain comes in all shapes and sizes and the meaning we ascribe to it - our suffering - drastically shapes our experience of pain, and how we manage it.

Good symptom control at the end of life requires not only prescription of the right combination of medications, but also knowing when and how to take them. Many doctors are reluctant to prescribe opioids such as morphine until late in the course of disease, and often the doses are too weak. Furthermore, the health system often struggles to keep up with a patients changing symptoms as their disease progresses.

Joan explores what patients can do to better the situation. She dispels the myths about morphine & highlights the obstacles that most commonly hinder our chance of a so called 'good' death. She also discovers how religious belief can influence our experience of pain at the end of life.

Producer: Beth Eastwood

Some clips: Courtesy of Healthtalk.

Published on Wednesday, 7th December 2016.

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