[Palliative pain therapy--medico-ethical arguments]

The phenomenon pain expressed on an imaginary scale stretches from one end to the other between an event localized anywhere in the body to a condition menacing human existence as a whole, threatening i.e. the confidence in the sense of survival and wishes and goals for life. Whenever healing in the sense of a restitutio ad integrum is no longer possible, palliative strategies for pain relief have to be contemplated and questions about the right moment to abandon causal treatment, about what it means to orientate life on illness to be answered. Focus of discussion is on pain relief: 1. superior to all other therapeutic goals, 2. supporting human identity, 3. as key for the discovery of the meaningful present moment.