Journal of opioid management
-
Several strategies for preventing, identifying, and responding to aberrant opioid-related behaviors are recommended in pain management guidelines. This systematic review evaluated data supporting basic strategies for addressing aberrant opioid-related behaviors. Risk reduction strategies were identified via a review of available guidelines. ⋯ Similarly, preliminary evidence suggests that although recent regulatory and legal efforts may reduce misuse, they also impose barriers to the legitimate treatment of pain. Despite an absence of consistent, strong supporting evidence, clinicians are advised to use each of the available risk-mitigation strategies in combination in an attempt to minimize the risk of abuse in opioid treatment patients. Physicians must critically evaluate their opioid prescribing and not only increase their efforts to prevent substance abuse but also not compromise pain management in patients who benefit from it.
-
Review
Treatment of opioid-related central sleep apnea with positive airway pressure: a systematic review.
To systematically review the various modalities of positive airway pressure (PAP) in the treatment of opioid-related central sleep apnea (CSA). ⋯ The available evidence on the efficacy of PAP in opioid-related CSA is inconclusive. With the increasing use of opioids, further studies are needed to assess optimal PAP therapy and predictors of success in this group of patients.
-
A Smartphone app could be useful in aiding patients in self-monitoring and self-managing their chronic pain-related symptoms. The purpose of this study was to systematically review English-language pain-related Smartphone apps available for download in the United States. ⋯ Overall, most of the pain-related apps included within our review not only lacked evidence of HCP input regarding development but also contained few evidence-based pain management features.
-
Oxymorphone (14-hydroxydihydromorphinone), a pyridine ring unsubstituted pyridomorphinan, a semisynthetic opioid analgesic derived from thebaine, first developed in the year 1914 and has been available as oxymorphone hydrochloride parenteral forms in the United States since 1959, when the US Food and Drug Administration approved it. Over the years, it has been used for the alleviation of moderate-to-severe pain. ⋯ Although discovered many decades ago and used as parenteral formulation, the newer oral preparations of oxymorphone (immediate release and extended release) that were approved in 2006 can provide additional options for customizing therapy to accommodate various patient needs. This newer oral formulation could make this powerful agent an important drug in the armamentarium of the healthcare provider caring for patients with pain.
-
Throughout history, opioids have effectively alleviated pain but not without the risk of addiction and death. Seductive and dangerous, full of promise and destruction, opioids are both revered and feared by Western culture. Their exponential use in "developed countries" is now an enormous public health problem and requires us to harness their properties with scientific rigor and adequate safeguards. ⋯ The goal of this article is to inform the clinicians of the complicated neurobiology of opioids. It is our hope that scientists rather than government regulators dictate the appropriate response to the epidemic of over prescription of opioids. A similar designation of "medication overuse headache" has resulted in near extinction of excessive use of opioids in the field of headache medicine.