As a partner organization in the Physicians’ Clinical Support System – Buprenorphine, the American Psychiatric Association offers FREE monthly webinars for physicians who have waivers to treat Opioid dependence in office-based settings and other interested clinicians. The presentations address cutting-edge topics in treating substance use disorders and feature nationally prominent clinical experts, researchers, and government officials. Join us the second Tuesday of each month at noon Eastern.
The next session in this ongoing series will take place:
|
DATE: |
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 |
|
TIME: |
Noon - 1 p.m. Eastern |
|
TOPIC: |
Pain Management in Patients on Buprenorphine Maintenance |
|
PRESENTER: |
Daniel P. Alford, MD, MPH, FACP, FASAM |
|
REGISTER AT: |
This webinar will address the challenges of treating acute and chronic pain in patients maintained on buprenorphine. The main complexities are that patients with history of opioid dependence often have increased pain sensitivity and buprenorphine taken once per day does not provide analgesia beyond 8 hours and may interfere with co-administered opioid analgesics.
The appropriate treatment of acute pain in patients on buprenorphine maintenance includes continuing the patient’s baseline opioid requirements to avoid increased pain sensitivity associated with opioid withdrawal. These patients are also at risk of cross-tolerance to opioid analgesics and therefore adequate pain control will often necessitate higher opioid doses at shorter dosing intervals. Various treatment options will be discussed for both outpatient and inpatient acute pain management.
For buprenorphine maintained patients suffering from chronic pain, non-opioid analgesics and non-pharmacological approaches should be tried. Strategies for managing chronic pain requiring opioids will be discussed.
NOTE: Recordings of previous PCSS-B webinars can be accessed at www.pcssb.org and at www.psychiatry.org\pcssbwebinars