[The path to pain management on WHO. Step III. Towards a better understanding of the treatment of severe chronic pain].

Many patients with severe chronic pain continue to receive inadequate treatment. The reason is often a lack of proper communication between patient and physician. In order to ensure adequate pain therapy, it is essential to gain the patient's cooperation and also to involve the patient's relatives. Following comprehensive history-taking and a physical examination, the treatment is established individually on the basis of a stepped approach. The stepped schema advocated by the WHO is applied both to tumor-related and to non-tumor-related pain.