Care of emotional and physical pain in a client with HIV

Cecily Saunders first coined the phrase 'total pain' in the late 1960s. She described this as having physical, emotional, social and spiritual components and suggested that, unless each of these were addressed, total pain relief was unlikely. Even though she was relating this theory to patients with advanced cancer, the same can be said of people with AIDS. This paper describes the nursing care of one such individual.