2019-11-22 06:32:20
PAIN
a new study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine details the first comprehensive look across the scientific literature at the role of mind-body therapies in addressing opioid-treated pain. The researchers found that certain mind-body therapies can reduce pain, as well as reduce opioid use, among patients treated with prescription opioids.
Eric Garland, lead author on the study, Associate Dean for Research at the University of Utah College of Social Work and the Director of the University of Utah’s Center on Mindfulness and Integrative Health Intervention Development, explained that mind-body therapies focus on changing behaviour and the function of the brain with the goal of improving quality of life and health. Mind-body therapies include clinical use of meditation/mindfulness, hypnosis, relaxation, guided imagery, therapeutic suggestion and cognitive-behavioural therapy.
The research team looked at the type of pain experienced by the study participants (such as short-term pain from a medical procedure or long-term chronic pain), the type of mind-body therapy used, its effect on the severity of pain and the use (or misuse) of opioids.
They found that meditation/ mindfulness, hypnosis, therapeutic suggestion and cognitive-behavioural therapy all demonstrated significant improvements in pain severity. They also found that the majority of the meditation/ mindfulness, therapeutic suggestion and cognitive- behavioural therapy studies showed improvements in opioid use or misuse. In contrast, two studies utilizing relaxation found significantly worsened results in opioid dosing.
Notably, mind-body therapies seem to be effective at reducing acute pain from medical procedures, as well as chronic pain. The researchers highlighted this as an important finding, as mind-body therapies could be easily integrated into standard medical practice and could potentially prevent chronic use of opioids and opioid use disorder.
Since mind-body therapies primarily use mental techniques and can continue to be utilized by patients after formal treatment, they may be more easily-accessible than other treatments. The researchers also concluded that two of the mindbody therapies examined, meditation/mindfulness and cognitive-behavioural therapy, might have the highest clinical impact, since they are so widely accessible and affordable.
“Our research suggests that mind-body therapies might help alleviate this crisis by reducing the amount of opioids patients need to take to cope with pain,” Garland says. If all of us use this evidence as we make decisions, we can help stem the tide of the opioid epidemic.”
— University of Utah
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