| Podcast
Behavioral and psychological interventions for pain management have often been included in patient care as a last resort, a place to turn to when biomedical interventions fail to yield sustained amelioration in pain symptoms. Such an approach disregards research which has long suggested that patient...
| Article
Practitioners need to understand that there are steps that they should be taking to minimize the potential of a bad legal outcome in the event of an investigation involving an overdose.
The liability for an overdose event tracks back to the practitioner’s adherence to licensing board requirements...
| Article
A cross-sectional study published in the July edition of Drug and Alcohol Dependence concludes that the application of dispositional mindfulness may mediate the risk for opioid misuse in patients with chronic pain who are on long-term opioid therapy. The practice can attenuate opioid craving and...
| Podcast
Despite high prevalence and seemingly continuous attention, the clinical challenges associated with assessing, treating, and managing patients with chronic pain continue to persist. Many different forces are at play and responsible for this frequently frustrating situation and, as is often the case...
| Article
If I ask patients how satisfied they are with their pain treatment, I think there’s an inverse correlation with whether they’re on opioids or not; and the higher the dose of opioids, the less satisfied they are. In general, I don’t think that they’re a great treatment. I think they’re reserved for a...
| Article
Conclusions from new research conducted by a team from University of West Virginia School of Pharmacy and colleagues may help to inform prescribers’ decision making about the engagement of opioid therapy for noncancer pain. In seeking to better understand the risk factors for transitioning to long...
| Article
Is naloxone the silver bullet? Well maybe the silver bullet du jour. I think the biggest challenges with respect to naloxone are the educational hurdles because unlike the EpiPen, naloxone is intended to be administered by someone else not the patient. So that means that the burden of determining an...
| Podcast
This session will explore some of the challenges resulting from the recent “Decade of Pain.” Clearly, the overuse of opioids and, to some extent, the solutions proposed to curtail the misuse of prescription drugs has led to a shift in how we diagnose and how we treat substance use disorders in this...
| Article
Conclusions from a study of almost 6,000 individuals over a 24-year span suggest that chronic inflammation experienced in middle age may be associated with greater incidence of frailty and poorer overall health in later life. The research team, led by investigators from Johns Hopkins Medicine...
| Article
The hot topic with respect to practitioner groups is there seems to be a lot of denouncing of the fact that there’s too much opioid use and everyone is looking for ideas to minimize these opioids. But one of the top suggestions that people will consider is maybe nonopioid and nonpharmacologic...