People living with serious illness often have more than five non-pain symptoms, like loss of appetite, dyspnea, weakness, confusion and many others.

A number of symptom assessment tools have been developed, tested and evaluated. We will briefly review two common ones.

There are some specific challenges that we need to be aware of in symptom assessment and screening. One, patients may downplay or under report symptoms. Two, language in culture can be a barrier. Three, whose symptom is it?

In this activity, you will learn about the common symptom of anorexia and cachexia.

When you understand anorexia you are able to look for reversible causes, support patient and family emotional distress, and offer practical help to manage this problem.

It is much better to prevent or slow weight loss than trying to reverse the weight loss once it has occurred. So, screening and being proactive is important.

There are many ways to encourage people to eat more, such as, getting up and out of bed and sitting at the table with others, offering more frequent smaller portions, offering easy to swallow foods, and more.

We have looked at issues such as pain and weakness, contributing to not feeling well overall. During symptom assessment, you'll pick up on these symptoms and work to help people feel better.

No one treatment is likely to help everyone, but there are some medications that may aid in gaining weight.

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This activity will discuss Dyspnea. A common symptom experienced by many patients with chronic life-limiting illness.

In this activity, we'll talk about what it feels like to be short of breath. We will also discuss other symptoms that may happen with shortness of breath, or what we call dyspnea.

Treatment for Dyspnea, or shortness of breath, is different for each person, and depends on the cause of the shortness of breath, how severe the disease is, the type of symptoms they have and how long they’ve been present.

In this activity, we're going to talk about some ways you can help others to pace themselves and slow down, encouraging them to use energy slowly over the day instead of all at once will help them feel less tired.

Learn more about Martha Sturdivant’s story and case study: A Focus on Interstitial Pulmonary Fibrosis.

During this activity, you learn about the physical symptom of asthenia, also called fatigue. Fatigue and weakness are seen in almost all people living with serious illness.

It's helpful to understand what someone means by fatigue, are they talking about feeling tired, getting exhausted with minimal effort, feeling mentally tired or physically being weak. It might be a combination of problems.

The reason a person is feeling fatigued is in part due to medications, depression, anemia and several other problems.

Many medicines can contribute to fatigue, because they have some sedating properties. Adding several of these medications together will make someone feel very sleepy and fatigued.

To help with developing a treatment plan for fatigue, it's helpful to ask questions to help assess the degree of fatigue, associated distress and the impact on activities.

The basic idea is if you only have a small amount of energy, where is it best used? What are less important things that you could stop spending energy on?

Medicines can play an important role in select patients. Counseling and medications are more effective in treating the depression than either method alone, a trial of medication for depression may be helpful.

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Cognitive impairment involves a deteriorating process in the brain including perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning.

Dementia is one example of cognitive impairment. Learn more about the different types of dementia here.

Many changes in our ability to think are considered a normal part of aging. Just as how our brains continue to develop through our youth, our brain function also declines as does in other body systems over time.

Delirium is a set of symptoms caused by something else happening in our body. It is treatable and reversible, but it must be recognized before care can take place.

Near death awareness refers to the dying person's experiences of the dying process. Near death awareness concerns those traveling toward death.

The role of a caregiver can be complex, stressful, and costly. The responsibility of a caregiver can cause both physical and mental stress.

Let's summarize the key takeaways of cognitive impairment.

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Nausea, vomiting, and constipation are frequent symptoms among patients with advanced illness. The aim of this lecture is to review how these symptoms occur and how they can be treated from a palliative care perspective.

There are signals sent by areas of the body that can cause someone to vomit. Learn more about how these signals can cause vomiting in an individual.

Everyone at some point has experienced nausea and vomiting. Let's explore the various treatments that may help relieve these symptoms.

Constipation is a subjective meaning and can be a unique experience for everyone. For the human body to produce a normal bowel movement, there needs to be the right proportion of internal movement and lubrication.

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