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Many Medicare patients with new episodes of low back pain receive care inconsistent with current guidelines – including high use of opioids and advanced imaging tests, reports a study in the February issue of Medical Care. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
Read moreSurgeons at Houston Methodist Hospital are stemming the tide of addiction to prescription opioids by managing patients’ pain after surgery. By using long-acting local anesthetics at the site of surgery and scheduled non-narcotic pain medicine, they decreased opioid prescriptions from 87% to 10% after surgery.
Read moreAt a family medicine clinic in the Boston area, a team led by faculty from Tufts University School of Medicine conducted a five-year case study where they found medical facilities can help physicians to treat chronic pain in a way that will deter opioid misuse, while creating better processes to identify and treat patients who develop an opioid use disorder.
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Of three possible ways for people to deliver the life-saving antidote naloxone to a person experiencing an opioid overdose, the use of a nasal spray was the quickest and easiest according to research conducted by William Eggleston, clinical assistant professor at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and colleagues at SUNY Upstate Medical University.
Read moreOlder teens may have similar risk factors for prescription opioid overdose as adults, a new study suggests.
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Hands Down Better, a website launched by the American Chiropractic Association (ACA), is a new resource for those who seek alternatives to pain medications and surgery for common musculoskeletal conditions such as back pain, neck pain, joint pain and headaches.
Read morePeople in treatment for opioid addiction are more likely to relapse when they become more tolerant of risks, according to a study by Rutgers and other institutions. The findings can help clinicians better predict which patients are most vulnerable.
Read moreStigma and safety fears have made daily dose tapering of opioid prescriptions more common. New research from UC Davis Health physicians, however, shows tapering can occur at rates as much as six times higher than recommended, putting patients at risk of withdrawal, uncontrolled pain or mental health crises.
Read moreThe U.S. opioid epidemic is still raging – it’s particularly pronounced in low-income areas and in those where people lack access to health care services, which includes cities in Michigan and across the Rust Belt. But the effectiveness of efforts to provide treatment and recovery options to those who need it most – that is, in locations with the greatest number of deaths from opioid overdose – has been unclear.
Read moreMore than 160 members of the chiropractic, physical therapy and osteopathic professions forged a new spirit of cooperation and understanding during the Interprofessional Collaborative Spine Conference (ICSC), which took place Nov. 8-9 in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Read moreColleagues at the University of California at Irvine have developed an electronic prescription drug accountability program to keep track of prescribing among hospitalists, primary care physicians, and emergency department physicians within an institution.
Read moreAn international team of researchers has used nanoparticles to deliver a drug—one that previously failed in clinical trials for pain—into specific compartments of nerve cells, dramatically increasing its ability to treat pain in mice and rats. The findings are published Nov. 4 in Nature Nanotechnology.
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