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Pain Management in Companion Animals: Medical–Legal Aspects

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Abstract

Preventing and managing pain has become a fundamental part of quality and compassionate patient care in veterinary medicine. In fact, animal pain and suffering are clinically important conditions that adversely affect an animal’s quality of life. Methods to prevent and control pain must be tailored to the individual animal. As advocates for their patients, the veterinary team has the responsibility to recognize, assess, prevent, and treat pain. Considering that many dogs and cats still receive little or not analgesia following surgery, trauma, or disease, we suggest the development of guidelines on pain management to assist the veterinarian in optimizing comfort care.

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Correspondence to A. Passantino .

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Quartarone, V., Fazio, A., della Rocca, G., Russo, M., Passantino, A. (2013). Pain Management in Companion Animals: Medical–Legal Aspects. In: Boiti, C., Ferlazzo, A., Gaiti, A., Pugliese, A. (eds) Trends in Veterinary Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36488-4_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36488-4_26

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-36487-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-36488-4

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