ABSTRACT
Fatigue is the most prevalent symptom in terminally ill patients. Of 100 consecutive palliative care patients, their family members, or their nurses, 83 reported weakness and 81 reported fatigue. 1 Conill et al. 2 evaluated the prevalence of symptoms in 176 terminally ill patients when the patients were first assessed by the program and compared this to the symptoms patients experienced in the last week of life. On first evaluation, weakness occurred in 77%, and in the last week of life in 82% of the patients. In another study of terminally ill cancer patients, 75% reported fatigue.3 The report of a study of patients with advanced cancer documented 51% with weakness during a structured interview. That symptom was second only to pain which was reported by 57%.4 Some types of cancer appear to cause a higher incidence of fatigue, i.e., lymphohematologic 75%, colorectal 68%, esophageal 64%, and lung 60%.
