Chronic Pain Of The Elderly ( 65 Years Of Age ) Essay

Opioid addiction is so prevalent in the healthcare system because of the countless number of hospital patients being treated for chronic pain. While opioid analgesics have beneficial painkilling properties, they also yield detrimental dependence and addiction. There is a legitimate need for the health care system to provide powerful medications because prolonged pain limits activities of daily living, work productivity, quality of life, etc. (Taylor, 2015). Patients need to receive appropriate pain treatment, however, opioids need to be prescribed after careful consideration of the benefits and risks.

The patients who are in pain requires pain relief, but many of them with chronic pain have trouble with prescribed opioids either due to psychosocial problems

Addressing the people exposed to opioids may reduce the number of people starting and continuing to abuse drugs in the long term. In addition to this suggestion, data found from 2006-2015, the duration of opioids increased by a third suggesting fewer patients choose to start using opioids for pain management, however, patients already on medication continue to do so. This is because once long term opioid users, even when taking their medication as directed by their doctor, eventually develop a tolerance to the drug. A tolerance to pain medication can cause patients to up their dose or take too many medications in a small time frame in order to alleviate the same amount of pain that a smaller dose would have fixed in the past. The risk of developing tolerance is an important conversation to have with a health care professional because in addiction to pain, patients go on to develop a physical dependence to the drug. Physically patients feel pain, illness, and other symptoms; in some cases they are unable to give up the drug. This is when their dependence is classified as an

The use of opioid-based prescription medications to treat non-terminal chronic pain can cause side effects from short term use, and is overly common and ineffective. Firstly, opioid usage can induce negative short-term effects. According to William A. Darity, Jr., short-term opioid usage causes negative effects such as “euphoria, drowsiness, and impaired motor and cognitive functioning” (“Drugs”). The short term effects of the opioids may cause the patient to isolate him or herself socially due to being self-conscious about his or her friends and peers seeing the individual in their current condition. Due to his or her fragile emotional state, however, if the patient isolates him or herself during a time in which he or she should have increased

Opioid abuse, misuse and overdose is a problem in The United States. You can’t turn on the TV or read a newspaper without some mention of the epidemic. This issue has caused the practice of prescribing or taking narcotic pain medication to be looked at under a microscope. Patients are fearful to use some necessary pain medication, because they may become addicted. Other patients who genuinely do have pain and need medication are having a tougher time obtaining the help they need. The problem of abuse and addiction is tough to solve since for some people the medications are the only way they can function and live a semi-normal life. A patient with pain may be hesitant to visit the doctor and

Jamison RN, Serraillier J, Michna E. Assessment and treatment of abuse risk in Opioid prescribing for chronic pain. Pain Res Cl. 2011;2011:1-12. doi:10.1155/2011/941808.

Opioids, otherwise known as prescription pain medication, are used to treat acute and chronic pain. They are the most powerful pain relievers known. When taken as directed they can be safe and effective at managing pain, however, opioids can be highly addictive. Ease of access helps people get pain medications through their physician or by having friends and family get the medication for them. With their ease of access and being highly addictive the use and misuse of opioids have become a growing epidemic. Patients should be well educated on the affects opioid use can have. More importantly instead of the use of opioids, physicians should look into alternative solutions for pain management. While pain medication is helpful with chronic pain, it is also highly addictive, doctors should be more stringent to whom and how often they prescribe pain medication.

Today the recent growth of prescription opioid painkillers has made opiate use far more domesticated and widespread than ever before.  Even though heroin use has declined, the use of prescription opiates has increased. The use of prescription opiates for people who are dependent on the drugs for pain reduction has lead to an increase in abuse. When a family member or friend begins taking the drugs, not because they need them, but because they want to feeling, it becomes an addiction. Even though an addict is dependent on opiates, a person who is opiate-dependent is different because of the psychological, physical, and financial effects.

In the United States, opioids have become a major component in healthcare because they are an exceptional method of relieving pain. For those who are recovering from a recent inpatient surgery or those with cancer who are in a great deal of pain, it is a necessity. A known problem with opioids is that they are addictive, which leads to overuse of the medication by the patient. Opioids are also highly sought after as a street drug, this leads to patients exaggerating their pain level in order to receive more pills and selling their excess medication to others. Doctors will often prescribe opioids to patients who do not need such an aggressive form of pain relief, for example, people with arthritis or who have gone through a minor outpatient surgery. This can lead to a long-term use of these pain relieving drugs and possible addiction, which goes against the original purpose of opioids. In order to solve America’s dependence on opioids, medical professionals must go back to the original method of prescribing them, that is, only short-term use for people recovering from surgeries or in pain due to cancer, instead of a long-term solution for acute pain.

Doctors and other medical professional specialize in providing quality medical care for their patients, are now fighting to control pain without the risk of misuse and abuse of prescribed medications by their patients. One disadvantage of quality care is providing opioid medications to help control extreme pain for some patients. Many patients have become dependent on opioid—highly addicted painkillers such as fentanyl, hydrocodone, morphine, oxycodone, propoxyphene, and methadone. According to 21 Health Organizations and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) cited by ACPM, “effective pain management is an integral and important aspect of quality medical care, and pain should be treated aggressively” (the American College of Preventive Medicine, 2011). Aggressively fighting patients’ pain with opioid medications have led to an increase rate of addictions to the level in which it is known as uncontrollable epidemic in today’s society.

The paragraphs below describe the predominant clinical practice gaps in current management of chronic pain. As NPs increase their knowledge and competence in these areas, it is anticipated that changes in clinical practice will

Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 41(5), 848-858. In the article above, the authors observe the increase in prescription drug abuse in patients to alleviate chronic pain. This is amid widespread efforts that promote responsiveness and control of chronic pain. In the study, Goebel et al. (2011) use self-reported incidences in veterans, citing the causative factors to the abuse. A cross sectional quantitative analysis of the results is then carried out. In results, the authors find out that 35.3% of 343 veterans reported street drug use, alcohol use and prescription sharing in controlling pain. A number of behaviours were also associated with the abuse behaviour. This article provides relevant information concerning drug abuse among older individuals. Furthermore, it blends with the topic at hand giving methods in which the use can be mitigated. 3. Hall, P. B., Hawkinberry, D., & Moyers-Scott, P. (2010). Prescription Drug Abuse & Addiction: Past, Present and Future:The Paradigm for an Epidemic. West Virginia Medical Journal, 106(2010), 25-30. Hall et al. (2010) liken the level of drug abuse in the United States to an epidemic, citing the need for exploratory research in the

This paper explores multiple studies and facts pertaining to the use and prescribing methods of opioids. The positive effects of opioids as well as the negative effects are taken into account. In one study, conducted by Furlan, Sandoval, Mailis-Gagnon, and Tunks (2006), opioids were effective in the treatment of CNCP overall. However according to David N. Juurlink (2012), more recent and more rigorous studies suggest that opioid use disorders occur in up to one-third of patients on chronic opioid therapy. So abuse and addiction are likely to occur in people taking opioids long term. Overall, evidence on long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain is very limited but suggests an increased risk of serious harms that appears to be

This study is credible and reliable because it was carried out by professional who are doctors in their field at either hospital or universities. If we also view the Long-term Opioid Therapy for Chronic Pain and the Risk of Opioid Addiction by Burgess, H. J., Siddiqui, A., M.D., & Burgess, Frederick W,M.D., PhD., whom conduct their own research in the opioid addiction field. Their researched was conducted within the United State of America on Rates of opioid pain reliever (OPR) overdose death, OPR treatment admissions, and kilograms of OPR-sold – between 1999–2012. (Burgess, Harrison J; Siddiqui, Afreen, MD Author Information Burgess, Frederick W, MD,

“Many older persons (≥60 years of age) develop chronic illnesses that may be associated with persistent pain [1-4]. The inadequate treatment of persistent pain in older persons is associated with numerous adverse outcomes such as functional impairment, accidental falls (with or without injury), slow rehabilitation, decreased socialization, greater health care costs, and greater resource utilization. From 2010–2050, the US population of persons aged ≥65 years is projected to double. In the US, it is estimated that ∼100 million people have chronic pain. In comparison, current estimates of Americans affected with other common diseases are 29.1 million and 14 million for diabetes mellitus and cancer, respectively. However, some treatments