[Palliative care: therapeutic possibilities for patients at the end of life]

Palliation seeks to provide alleviation of pain and all other physical complaints, together with psychologic and spiritual support. The commonly used symptomatic therapies are undoubtedly fit to significantly improve the patient's quality of life. Subjects of palliative medicine should be included in postgraduate nursing education, covering above all the basic notions listed by the WHO, such as the principles of efficient communication, the pathophysiology of symptoms in advanced cancer, the evaluation and importance of pain, the basic physiologic and spiritual needs of the seriously ill or the dying. It is also mandatory to care about the physiologic needs of the patient's family and to know the physiologic and psychologic reactions in coping with grief.