Elder Abuse Litigation and the Duty to Provide Palliative Care (Health Law‪)‬

Society's debate concerning physician-assisted suicide exposed the problem of inadequate pain management for the elderly and the terminally ill. Specifically, studies since the early 1990s highlighted the problem of the under-medication in elderly and terminally ill patients. (1) The dynamic tension between inadequately medicating patients suffering from chronic pain and the need to control illegal narcotic availability has put pain management in the forefront of medicine and law. Interestingly, confusion defining a pain management standard of care has attorneys wondering whether claims against physicians for the under-treatment of chronic pain should arise in the new theories of elder abuse statutes or should simply be an extension of the more traditional medical malpractice negligence suits.