Unlike opioid drugs like morphine and fentanyl that travel throughout the body, the opioids your body produces are released in small quantities to specific locations.
Non-opioid directives allow patients to refuse opioids in all health care settings. For surgical procedures that require anesthesia, however, this may do more harm than good.
Game making is an art form that many aren’t intimately familiar with. Unlike other creative practices, game makers must create the rules and laws that govern and shape player behaviours.
Firefighters are hailed as heroes and pillars of strength, bravery and courage. But the daily stressors and traumas of their jobs take a heavy emotional toll that largely goes unnoticed by the public.
About 1 in 4 people prescribed an opioid for pain end up abusing it. New methods to reduce the need for opioids after surgery have been shown to work – and thus minimize the need for such drugs.
Jonathan S. Jones, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Considered in historical context, Purdue’s plan to peddle opioid addiction medicines to vulnerable people is not so surprising. Gilded-Age pharmaceutical companies used similar strategies.
The toll of the opioid epidemic is often derived from toxicology reports. These rely on drug tests. A medical historian explains these tests and how they fall short of capturing why people are dying.
A bill to deal with the opioid crisis recently came out of a Senate committee. While some of its recommendations are good, some key points are missing.
Opioid addiction is a serious public health problem, killing more than 42,000 people a year and ruining families. But alcohol is still the deadliest drug in the US. An addiction expert tells why.
As the nation grapples with its opioid addiction epidemic, an understanding of how the drugs affect people is important. The powerful class of drugs actually can change the brain.
The claim there is no evidence painkillers combined with lower doses of codeine are more effective in treating pain, is misleading. As are others in this debate.
Associate Dean and Chief Academic Officer for Nursing and Director, Project Healthy Grandparents, Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions, Georgia State University