Self Paced Palliative Care

When goals of therapy shift from prolonging a patient’s life to symptom management and quality of life, a clinician is often facing a patient on multiple medications – including some with little benefit under the new goals. Stopping those medications can decrease the patient’s risk of adverse effects, as well as the potential financial burden.

Whether to stop long-term maintenance medications can be a difficult decision for health care providers, patients and families. With few formal studies and no clinical guidelines to help them, prescribers who care for patients at the end of life may not be aware of the nuances of deescalating therapy.  

This course provides clinicians with a framework for understanding polypharmacy; the importance of deprescribing drugs in palliative care patients; and the tools, strategies, and resources clinicians can use to safely stop medications in alignment with patient goals.