View Bigger Picture
Ronald G. Thompson, Ph.D., (left) Andrew James, Ph.D., and Mary Bollinger, Ph.D., (not proven) have designed an app to lower opioid cravings and optimize medication-assisted therapy amongst people with opioid use dysfunction.
| LITTLE ROCK — A trio of researchers on the College of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) have designed a sensible telephone software to lower opioid cravings and optimize medication-assisted therapy amongst people with opioid use dysfunction.
A prototype of the app, often called OptiMAT (Optimizing Medicine Assisted Therapy), was considered one of 5 successful entries within the 2022 Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) “Product Prototypes to Fight Drug Craving” Problem, a nationwide contest of product prototypes designed to cut back drug cravings and forestall drug misuse, incomes Andrew James, Ph.D., Ronald G. Thompson, Ph.D., and Mary Bollinger, Ph.D., an honorable point out and a $5,000 money prize.
“An estimated 40% of individuals with opioid use dysfunction return to opioid use inside one 12 months of initiating outpatient medication-assisted therapy. OptiMAT was created to assist individuals handle their opioid cravings and, hopefully, forestall relapse,” stated James, an affiliate professor within the Division of Psychiatry and a neuroimaging scientist within the UAMS Helen L. Porter and James T. Dyke Mind Imaging Analysis Heart.
Opioids accounted for 68,630 overdose deaths in 2020, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. Rural states like Arkansas are the toughest hit by opioid overdose due to increased opioid prescription charges and an absence of well being care sources, leading to an opioid-related mortality fee 4 occasions that of city areas. Arkansas has the second highest opioid prescription fee within the nation, with 75.8 prescriptions per 100 residents, in comparison with the nationwide common of 43.3 in 2020.
OptiMAT’s options embody self-monitoring of every day opioid use, opioid craving and temper; customized suggestions on objective attainment; charts generated to depict self-assessments over time; well being info and abstinence-supporting sources; tricks to handle craving and keep away from opioid misuse; and a GPS-driven “just-in-time” intervention when coming into predesignated geographical areas identified to extend threat for opioid use.
“Monitoring every day remedy use, temper, cravings and withdrawal retains individuals conscious of and accountable for his or her behaviors and the customized suggestions on objective attainment reinforces sobriety and promotes engagement in medication-assisted therapy for opioid use dysfunction,” stated Thompson, an assistant professor within the Division of Psychiatry.
“The just-in-time intervention reminds the participant of their sobriety targets and encourages them to name a pal, member of the family or emergency contact and depart the realm earlier than they lapse again to opioid use,” stated Bollinger, an assistant professor within the Division of Psychiatry.
Funded by a $2.8 million grant from the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse, the analysis crew is at present conducting a managed trial to check the effectiveness of OptiMAT amongst people receiving medication-assisted therapy for opioid use dysfunction on the UAMS Heart for Habit Companies and Therapy (CAST).
UAMS is the state’s solely well being sciences college, with schools of Drugs, Nursing, Pharmacy, Well being Professions and Public Well being; a graduate faculty; a hospital; a fundamental campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide community of regional campuses; and 7 institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Most cancers Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Backbone & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Analysis Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Getting old, Translational Analysis Institute and Institute for Digital Well being & Innovation. UAMS contains UAMS Well being, a statewide well being system that encompasses all of UAMS’ medical enterprise. UAMS is the one grownup Degree 1 trauma heart within the state. UAMS has 3,240 college students, 913 medical residents and fellows, and 5 dental residents. It’s the state’s largest public employer with greater than 11,000 staff, together with 1,200 physicians who present care to sufferers at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Youngsters’s, the VA Medical Heart and Baptist Well being. Go to www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Discover us on Fb, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.
###
9(MDAwMTM1NDgzMDEyMzg2MDcwMzJjODJiYQ004) "UT Arlington researchers assist surgeons goal mind space inflicting epileptic seizures in youngsters")
