Drug overdose deaths in older adults have skyrocketed in recent times, leaping 147% during the last decade – the very best enhance in any age group within the nation. Amongst folks 65 and older, males are twice as doubtless as girls to undergo overdoses, and Black Individuals are over 10% extra doubtless than different minority teams. Provided that seniors are extra weak to prescription drug overdoses, entry to non-drug alternate options for ache administration is very necessary. Lowering opioid use begins with altering our method to power ache administration and rising entry to secure, efficient, non-addictive remedy choices.
Congress acknowledges the necessity for brand new approaches to fight opioid misuse and drug dependancy. In late Could, the Senate handed a Decision calling on Congress to advance bipartisan options to handle substance use dysfunction wants of older adults, noting that our seniors are extra prone to substance use dysfunction for a number of causes. Final yr, the Home Vitality and Commerce Committee held a listening to the place members emphasised the necessity to higher promote non-addictive remedies and requested the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) to prioritize non-addictive alternate options for ache administration.
Whereas it is a shift in the best course, policymakers should additionally have in mind the worth of complementary and integrative healthcare (CIH) for seniors and power ache victims, to cut back opioid use and reliance. When CIH suppliers are utilized in ache administration from the beginning, analysis exhibits that prescriptions for opioids plummet, which is a a lot smarter preventative technique than managing dependancy on the again finish. The American School of Physicians strongly recommends beginning with non-pharmacological remedy for each acute and power low again ache. Let’s comply with the proof and promote non-pharmacological ache administration approaches as first-line remedies.
CIH suppliers, together with chiropractic physicians, acupuncturists, and therapeutic massage therapists, present efficient and secure remedies for ache. But, they’re too typically neglected by Congress and a healthcare system that tends to default to pharmacological remedies as step one in ache discount. Sufferers are more and more using complementary and integrative therapies and increasing entry to those care choices giving seniors extra selections and management over managing their well being.
Nevertheless, important boundaries – along with a scarcity of will by policymakers – forestall entry to integrative care choices and suppliers. The economics of the healthcare system limits entry and fails to incentivize affected person selection of high-value CIH providers. Slightly, they favor prescribing pharmacological approaches – together with opioids – that don’t replicate greatest practices for power ache administration like these really helpful by the American School of Physicians, the Joint Fee and the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Growing entry and decreasing monetary boundaries to non-pharmacological remedies is essential to making sure excessive worth care is incentivized and healthcare supply displays present greatest practices. Treating ache and associated circumstances with non-pharmacological choices first has the potential to cut back drug dependencies, unintentional overdoses and deaths, and different severe antagonistic results, whereas stopping relapse of these combating dependancy who might proceed affected by ache related to acute accidents.
Legislative measures to fight opioid misuse and drug dependancy ought to be accompanied by insurance policies offering viable remedy alternate options for older adults. To do that, we should acknowledge CIH’s position in preventive care and guarantee insurance policies present entry to a full complement of healthcare professionals. Congress must prioritize entry to CIH over extra invasive and addictive remedies to change the trajectory of our lethal opioid epidemic. By stressing the advantages of integrative healthcare to higher assist well being creation over the lifespan, Congress can reform our nation’s method to power ache administration.
Well being Science training is coaching the following era of healthcare professionals to prioritize efficient, non-pharmacologic remedies for ache administration, making ready the long run workforce for evidence-based observe. It’s time for Congress to comply with go well with – Congress should advocate for and prioritize insurance policies that embody complementary and integrative healthcare.
Photograph: MikeyLPT, Getty Pictures
