The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2008) and the National Quality Forum defined palliative care as, Patient and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, minimizing, and treating suffering. Palliative...

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The focus of palliative care is to relieve human suffering; however, about 90% of patients with advanced cancer will experience severe pain. Intolerable human suffering may be defined in the healthcare setting as symptoms that cannot be tolerated or endured for any length of time. If the patient is...