Use of Adjuvant Drugs
Opioids are the mainstay of the treatment of pain caused by a terminal diseases; however, there are several helpful classes of drugs that are not usually thought of as analgesics. These are referred to as Adjuvant Analgesics because they effectively relieve certain types of pain that do not fully respond to opioid therapy.
The following pages focus on specific pains which may be managed by the addition of adjuvant medications. These pains are:
Inflammation
Bone pain
Raised intracranial pressure
Visceral pain
Bowel obstruction
Neuropathic pain
Muscular pain
Following the discussion of these conditions, we will briefly address non-pharmacological pain therapies.