Article Excerpt: Not so far in the future, your doctor might prescribe playing a few games in virtual reality to ease aches and pains, rather than popping a pill.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/zg5p9t5
Article Source: MIT Technology Review
Article Excerpt: Can a social media strategy that has helped gay men combat HIV now help curb the abuse of powerful opioid drugs? That’s the question a team of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is asking in a pilot study highlighted by White House officials last week.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/zzfk7tw
Article Source: ScienceMag
Article Excerpt: When addiction treatment specialist Zev Schuman-Olivier, MD, found that young adults taking buprenorphine to treat their opioid addiction often stopped using the medication, he began looking for a novel way to address the problem. He is now testing an integrated mobile system that incorporates smartphone videoconferencing and a secure electronic medicine dispenser to allow young adults to take their daily buprenorphine at home, under remote supervision of a recovery coach.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/zkt9hyl
Article Source: Partnership for Drug-Free Kids
Article Excerpt: Responding to public demand for tools and information to help stem the growing opioid overdose epidemic, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has created a web section dedicated to resources about the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone. The new web resource includes information about the medication, how, and by whom, it can be given, and where to obtain it. Additionally, dosage information, precautions, and the side effects of naloxone are highlighted.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/j5zgtok
Article Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Article Excerpt: A new survey finds that barely half of the nation’s physicians realize they can check a database at any time to determine if their patients are abusing opioids, and even fewer are using it.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/h8tpg59
Article Source: mHealth Intelligence
Article Excerpt: Many of the apps that pharma companies are developing to support conditions or specific drugs and diagnostics are either only available outside the U.S. or are still being evaluated in pilot studies. A specialist drug developer rolled out an app in December to support its drug to treat people for opioid abuse. The idea is for treatment centers and physicians to dispense the app to patients.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/ky7usow
Article Source: MedCity News
Article Excerpt: Emergency departments can play valuable roles in addressing the opioid abuse crisis, according to health psychologist Edwin Boudreaux, PhD.
“The ED prescribes lots of opiates in order to help people manage their pain,” said Dr. Boudreaux, professor of emergency medicine, psychiatry and quantitative health sciences, vice chair of research for the Department of Emergency Medicine at UMMS, and director of Behavioral Health Services at the UMass Memorial Medical Center-University Campus emergency room.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/ldjjbob
Article Source: UMassMedNow
Article Excerpt: Use of cigarettes, alcohol, and abuse of prescription pain relievers among teens has declined since 2013 while marijuana use rates were stable, according to the 2014 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey, released today by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). However, use of e-cigarettes, measured in the report for the first time, is high.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/l94xx9r
Article Source: National Institutes of Health
Article Excerpt: Overdose deaths from both prescription opioids and heroin continued to rise in 2011, the most recent year for which data were available, according to the CDC.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/qyqdgo8
Article Source: MedPage Today