Prevention
Educating Children About Marketing Messages Can Help Prevent Substance Abuse
Media Detective is an activity-based program used to help prevent alcohol and tobacco use among children, helping them understand the intentions of marketers and advertising. A new study suggests that teaching children as young as eight or nine to be more skeptical of marketing tactics can help prevent substance abuse.
How to Control Teen Parties and Prevent Drinking of Alcohol
New York’s State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) recently advised parents about the dangers of underage drinking at residential parties. To be blunt, minors who attend parties where alcohol is available are at risk for becoming intoxicated, regardless of whether the actual imbibing of alcohol has been sanctioned by party hosts.
Minors who drink alcohol at celebrations are then at risk for alcohol-related overdoses, injuries, motor vehicle accidents, and death.
Would Changes in Opioid Formulation Help Deter Abuse?
As effective as opioids can be in the treatment of pain and other conditions, they also continue to be a target for abuse. According to an article in Monthly Prescribing Reference, scientific experts are examining whether or not opioids can be formulated to deter abuse.
Drug Education Essential for Youth
The consistent education for teens susceptible to drug use and abuse is important in order to win the war on drugs. As a recent news release highlights, there is clear evidence that more kids need to be reached with effective information and prevention tools.
Does Country Life Protect Kids from Drugs and Alcohol?
The idyllic American life is identified with small towns and the rural countryside, a place isolated from modern threats of violence, drugs and alcohol. Many seek out what they perceive to be the quiet and slower pace of the country life, and believe that their children will benefit from life there.
How to Safely Combat Pain
There’s nothing worse than feeling pain. The longer you experience it, the more it seems to affect you. Whether your pain is acute or chronic, pain is pain. And what’s primary on your mind is what to do about it. But before you make a decision about getting a prescription for an opioid painkiller, consider the other remedies for alleviating pain that may be a better option.
Acute vs. Chronic Pain
First, however, it’s important to differentiate between acute and chronic pain. According to WebMD, acute pain begins suddenly and is sharp in quality. It may serve as a warning sign of disease or some kind of threat to the body. Acute pain may be mild and last only a short time, or it can be severe, lasting many weeks or months. Usually, acute pain lasts less than six months – disappearing when the underlying condition is treated or heals. Examples of incidents causing acute pain include childbirth, dental work, broken bones, cuts and burns, and surgery. If the underlying condition remains untreated, however, acute pain can become chronic pain.
Chronic pain, on the other hand, is pain that persists even after an injury has healed. WebMD advises that pain signals remain active in the body’s nervous system for varying lengths of time: weeks, months, or even years. Chronic pain has numerous physical effects, including limited mobility, changes in appetite, lack of energy and muscle tenseness. It also has several emotional effects, including anger, anxiety, depression, and fear of re-injury. All of these effects may serve to prevent the chronic pain sufferer from returning to work or normal activities.
People complaining of chronic pain may have one or more of the following pain causes: arthritis, cancer, headache, low back problem, nerve damage, or psychogenic pain (pain not caused by past injury, disease or visible sign of damage).
Methods to Treat Pain
Numerous methods exist to treat pain. These include non-prescription or over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription drugs, nerve blocking, alternative treatments, electrical stimulation, exercise and physical therapy, spinal decompression therapy, surgery, psychological counseling, and behavior modification. Some of these are more effective when combined with other forms of treatment. In addition, pain sufferers often need to try several different methods in order to obtain the needed relief. We’ll examine each of the pain treatment methods separately.
Parents of Kids with Cancer and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
When a cancer diagnosis is given, it seems natural that stress levels would go up. Endless decisions about treatments and specialist choices, navigating normal life while enduring treatment, and possibly chronic pain, can all elevate stress for the patient.
Preventing Facebook Addiction
Facebook, the popular social networking site, has 350 million members worldwide who collectively spend 10 billion minutes on the site every day. Katie Hafner of the New York Times writes that some students are nipping their addiction in the bud by deactivating their accounts or restricting their time on the site.
How to Help Prevent Teen Prescription Drug Abuse
If you’re a parent and you have teens at home (or even adolescents), don’t think that your prescription drugs are safe in your medicine cabinet. They’re not. And it doesn’t mean that your teen is necessarily going to raid your prescription stash so they can go out and get high – although that may very well be the case. What generally happens is that our teens know where we keep our prescriptions. They see us going there for this or that pill, and the imprint is made that this is where the drugs are.
Tips for Preventing Substance Abuse among Teens
With the growing problem of substance abuse among adolescents, it’s important for parents to be equipped with the necessary tools to communicate with their children about the dangers of abusing alcohol and other substances.
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The Addiction Primer: Everything You Need to Know to Get Help for a Loved One
A very inexpensive yet indispensable guide for anyone struggling with a loved one's addiction. Chapters on intervention, what to expect from rehab, and information on how addiction impacts the family.
