Posted: October 16th, 2022

Prescribing for Older Adults and Pregnant Women

Prescribing for Older Adults and Pregnant Women

One FDA-approved medication, one off-label medication, and one non-pharmacological intervention
Methadone is the gold standard treatment for opioid use in older adults. The methadone drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an effective treatment (Rosic et al., 2017). According to studies, the drug is effective in promoting recovery and maintaining abstinence from opioid use (Rosic et al., 2017). The medication is safe for older adults and does not cause any negative side effects. Statistics show that the drug has a high level of adherence because patients with opioid use disorder do not experience withdrawal symptoms (Rosic et al., 2017).
Buprenorphine is an off-label drug used to treat opioid use disorder. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has authorized the use of buprenorphine for off-label purposes (Attilia et al., 2018). Practitioners must exercise caution when determining dosage based on an elderly person’s health.
Opioid use disorder has been treated with cognitive behavior therapy. Non-pharmacological interventions are effective in addressing negative thoughts (Meyer et al., 2021). It assists addicts in establishing a link between their thoughts and actions (Meyer et al., 2021). It assists patients in dealing with self-destructive behaviors that led to the addictive behavior of opioid use disorder.
Risk Evaluation
The risk assessment I would use when prescribing treatment is the patient’s age, the drug’s side effects, how it functions, and the drug’s interaction with the patient. Some medications can have negative side effects that can jeopardize a patient’s health (Ducharme & Moore, 2019). Noncompliance can increase the risk of resuming old opioid-abusing habits. FDA-approved drugs pose few risks because they have been thoroughly tested for safety (Ducharme & Moore, 2019). The danger of off-label drugs is that they pose some kind of risk to patients. Off-label drugs are prescribed with caution by practitioners because they can cause adverse reactions in patients. – Best Dissertation Writing Service in Australia
Clinical Practice Recommendations
The use of opioid agonist treatment as the first line of treatment is recommended by clinical guidelines for opioid use disorder. The treatment’s safety profile against overdose use is one of its advantages (Ross et al., 2017). Individuals can recover from the disorder, according to national guidelines, with treatment and follow-up. Another rule is that withdrawal management should be avoided because it can lead to relapse (Ross et al., 2017). To address the individual needs of the patients, treatment should take an integrated and stepped approach. Treatments of various types are used to provide patients with personalized care.

References
F. Attilia, R. Perciballi, C. Rotondo, I. Capriglione, S. Iannuzzi, M. L. Attilia,… and M. Ceccanti (2018). Alcohol use disorder is treated pharmacologically. Scientific proof. 123-127 in Rivista di psichiatria, 53(3).
J. Ducharme and S. Moore (2019). Tools for assessing opioid use disorder and drug screening 318. Missouri Medicine, 116(4).
B. Meyer, G. L. Utter, and C. Hillman (2021). The Development of a Personalized, Interactive, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-Based Digital Therapeutic (MODIA) for the Adjunctive Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder. e31173 in JMIR Mental Health, 8(10).
T. Rosic, L. Naji, M. Bawor, B. B. Dennis, C. Plater, D. C. Marsh,… and Z. Samaan (2017). A prospective cohort study of the impact of comorbid psychiatric disorders on methadone maintenance treatment in opioid use disorder. 1399. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment.
A. Ross, J. Rankin, J. Beaman, K. Murray, P. Sinnett, R. Riddle,… and M. Vassar (2017). The methodological quality of systematic reviews cited in clinical practice guidelines for opioid use disorder treatment. The journal PLoS One, 12(8), e0181927.