Narcotics for elderly pain relief
Posted by Patti on May 20th, 2005 / Print This Post
As far as I know, no residents I have worked with in recent years took asprin for pain. They all took either acetaminophen or ibuprofen…and once in a while narcotics, for serious pain. This article puts it all into a new light for me:
FRIDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) — Daily aches and discomfort may become more common with age, but elderly Americans shouldn’t have to increase their dosage of narcotic pain relievers to keep up with the pain, researchers report.On the other hand, people under 50 years of age may need to ramp up their dosage of these opioid pain-relieving medicines — drugs like morphine, OxyContin and Percocet — to achieve ongoing relief, reports a study in the June issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia.
“Opioids are very safe if they’re used and dosed appropriately. The elderly should realize that these are very viable options for severe pain and they shouldn’t worry so much about the stigma attached to these drugs,” said researcher Dr. Pamela P. Palmer, professor of anesthesia and director of the pain management center at the University of California, San Francisco.
“Older people won’t have to escalate their dose much,” Palmer added. “However, tolerance is a very real issue in younger patients. Daily chronic use of opioids in young patients may not be getting them anywhere in the long run because our data shows that the average pain score was not improved” with a higher dose.