Driving Abilities NOT Impaired w/ Long-term OPIOID Use

Specialties Pain

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Specializes in ER, PACU, Med-Surg, Hospice, LTC.

Click here--->Opioids and Driving

From article:

"Recent preliminary study showed virtually no difference in the "driving skills and reaction times" of patients taking morphine compared to non-medicated drivers"

"In the future, these patients may be able to live "like normal functioning people, without the stigma and limitations now associated with long-term pain medication use"

This also a great article that Dave ARNP posted in a thread quite awhile back:

From article:

"Test scores significantly improved while subjects were taking opioids for pain, which suggests that long-term use of oxycodone with acetaminophen or transdermal fentanyl does not significantly impair cognitive ability or psychomotor function"

Clicky---> I love research studies :redbeathe:redbeathe:redbeathe

More power to chronic pain Patients!!!!!!!! Pain is the FIFTH vital sign and with great studies like this, hopefully the misinformed and the blinder-wearing attitudes will be history.

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Specializes in Pain Management.
Click here--->Opioids and Driving

From article:

"Recent preliminary study showed virtually no difference in the "driving skills and reaction times" of patients taking morphine compared to non-medicated drivers"

"In the future, these patients may be able to live "like normal functioning people, without the stigma and limitations now associated with long-term pain medication use"

This also a great article that Dave ARNP posted in a thread quite awhile back:

From article:

"Test scores significantly improved while subjects were taking opioids for pain, which suggests that long-term use of oxycodone with acetaminophen or transdermal fentanyl does not significantly impair cognitive ability or psychomotor function"

Clicky---> I love research studies :redbeathe:redbeathe:redbeathe

More power to chronic pain Patients!!!!!!!! Pain is the FIFTH vital sign and with great studies like this, hopefully the misinformed and the blinder-wearing attitudes will be history.

I'm going to look for the original articles on Tuesday...hopefully.

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Specializes in Pain Management.

For the 2nd study, I was not able to pull up a full text version [sigh], but I did find a critique cited in a later article:

Assessing Cognitive and Psychomotor Performance Under Long-Term Treatment with Transdermal Buprenorphine in Chronic Noncancer Pain Patients. Anesthesia & Analgesia. 105(5):1442-1448, November 2007.

In contrast to our hypothesis are the findings of Jamison et al. (15) who compared psychomotor function of patients with noncancer pain receiving transdermal fentanyl or controlled-release oxycodone in a crossover design and reported no significant differences between the two opioids. However, the informational value of the results is limited by the fact that the authors performed only two paper tests.

If anyone has the full text versions of these articles, please give a shout out.

Holla.

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