The nurse is administering pain medications to clients in a hospice program. Which of the following is a recommended guideline for this procedure?
A) Try the highest dose of medication first.
B) Do not increase dosages of narcotic drugs.
C) Dosages of opiates should decrease quickly if discontinuing the medication.
D) Correlate the medication to the client's report of pain intensity.
D
Feedback:
The nurse should consider several points when administering medications to hospice clients, including the following: the appropriate dose, route, and interval of administration are carefully chosen; the lowest dose of medication is tried first; pain medications are chosen to correspond with the client's report of pain intensity; and the dose of a narcotic (opiate) may be aggressively increased, if necessary (called "titration-up" of the dose), and dosages of opiates should decrease slowly ("tapering down") if the medication is to be changed.
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