Management of pain in palliative care differs from pain management in other contexts in that:

• There is often more than one source of pain.
• Acute persistent and chronic pain usually co-exist.
• Physical pain is complicated by the psychosocial and spiritual context of approaching the end of life.
• Pain is usually gradually increasing in severity.  Analgesia in palliative medicine is typically characterised by the need to titrate ever upwards at a carefully considered rate.
• The balance between the benefit of a medication or other intervention against its burden needs to be considered in terms of the immediate quality of life, rather than any long term considerations.