Opioid Painkillers

When people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias stop taking long-term opioid therapy (LTOT), they have a lower chance for short- and long-term worsening pain and depressive symptoms compared...

The FDA has made several updates to its opioid prescribing information, including new warnings about increased pain that can lead to adverse reactions such as respiratory depression.

Past prescribing guidance for adults with chronic pain had been interpreted as inflexible in the context of the opioid epidemic. The new guidance supports “individualized, patient-centered care,” the...

Draft revisions no longer include specific dosage ceilings. This and other changes address controversial elements of the older guidance and highlight clinicians’ roles in opioid prescribing decisions.

Most American adults use alternatives to opioid drugs such as complementary medicine to manage their pain, but psychological therapies are infrequently implemented, researchers say.

Even the best, multimodal treatment strategies may be only 30% effective, say the authors of a new review and pain management guide.

Patients given a non-opioid pain regimen after knee surgery had pain scores equal to their peers who received opioids, and no difference in side effects, according to a study by orthopedic surgeons.

Substantial regional variations exist for fracture-associated drug prescriptions — and hip fracture rates — in long-term care facility residents, researchers say.

Clinicians should be aware of preoperative opioid exposure levels to ensure older patients’ safe recovery, and to help determine the dosage of post-surgical painkillers, researchers say.

A high-dose painkiller prescription often accompanies hospital patients upon discharge to a skilled nursing facility. The result is a complex medication management challenge for care providers, investigators...