| Article
Last week, the National Institutes of Health announced a major new research commitment devoted to advancing the national response to the crisis of opioid abuse and addiction. The HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) Initiative will be a multiagency initiative to advance scientific research on a...
| Article
Last week, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams, MD, MPH, issued an advisory advocating for greater distribution and availability of naloxone as an element of the national response to opioid use disorder. The Surgeon General recommends that individuals at risk for opioid overdose, as well as their family...
| Article
In 2017, the state of Kentucky became the first to classify gabapentin as a Schedule 5 substance, following the finding that the drug was involved in up to 33% of overdose fatalities during the prior year. This means that prescriptions for gabapentin will be reported to the state’s PDMP going...
| Article
Although one of the goals of clinical guideline development is to aid the provider with information to help make important treatment decisions, what’s not completely divulged is that clinical treatment guidelines can’t make a good treatment decision per se for an individual patient. Guidelines that...
| Podcast
Although opioids remain an important tool in aiding the management of pain in the United States, the balance between the potential benefits and harms must be considered. Some specific harms are manifested in the abuse of opioids for nonmedical purposes. The primary access to prescribable opioids for...
| Article
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the third largest Institute of the National Institutes of Health, has announced the awarding of a $4.6 million grant to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The grant will be used to study the molecular neurobiology of pain in patients...
| Video
The movement to prescribing guidelines began in Washington State. Professor Zeigler summarizes where we've gone from there in the increasingly complex arena of guidelines, rules, and regulations, and what the overall impact has been on various dimensions of pain practice.
| Video
A number of regulatory agencies are now "sitting at the pain management table" with the ability to impact clinical decisions regarding pain care. It is critical that the practitioner is able to navigate the waters without sacrificing the primary stakeholder: the patient. Dr. Zacharoff weighs in...
| Video
Dr. Stacey reviews the key guidelines for treating migraine and neuropathic pain and evaluates their strengths and weaknesses in providing direction for clinical decision making.
| Video
There are some common rules that private and governmental agencies use to score prescribing patterns, and that can be referred to various law enforcement agencies for follow-up. Dr. Gonzalez, with the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators, outlines how these algorithms are used, and...