Patients and their caregivers need access to high quality, evidence-based information to help make the best decisions about their care and the care of their loved ones. This page highlights the most recently added resources specifically designed to help patients, families, and caregivers make informed decisions. These resources, identified with green tiles, include educational materials, information about non-opioid pain management, and treatment for opioid use disorder and other addictions.
If you’d like to submit materials for inclusion consideration or suggest a future featured topic, please visit CLOUD’s call for submissions page.
This one page document includes information about substances and medications that can cause dangerous interactions with prescription opioids. According to this resource, patients are advised to avoid mixing prescription pain medication with alcohol, antihistamines, cough syrup, barbituates, benzodiazepines, and general anesthetics.
This one page resource provides a helpful table of common opioids and their corresponding brand and street/slang names.
This 2019 publication from the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists lists the risks of benzodiazepine medications. Benzodiazepines may be prescribed for anxiety, insomnia, or other conditions, but the medications have serious side effects, most notably that patients can become dependent on the
This guide from the National Institute on Drug Abuse addresses treating opioid use disorder (OUD) during pregnancy. It includes information about the effects of OUD on unborn children and newborns and about the benefits of medication assisted treatment for pregnant women with OUD diagnoses.
This one page infographic from the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows the occurrence of neonatal withdrawal syndrome (also known as neonatal abstinence syndrome) in babies born in the United States between 2004 and 2014.
This data analysis focuses on the occurrence of opioid use disorder documented during hospital births in the United States between 1999 and 2014. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published in the August 2018 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
This one page infographic describes the 4 stages of coping when a family member or friend has a substance use disorder: search, deny, accept, and learn.
Research shows that pain can be made worse by stress. This 2 page patient guide describes the relationship between pain and stress and provides tips to quieting the stress response and focusing on things that make you feel good.
Research shows that disturbed sleep can make pain problems worse. This patient guide provides tips for increasing restful sleep including changes people can make in their sleep habits and environment and ways to reduce stress. Also included is a chart where patients can track the changes they are making to their sleep routines.
Research shows that people can reduce or better manage their pain if they pay attention to their mood and feelings and adopt the techniques described in this guide to prioritize positive thoughts and actions. This resource provides an overview of cognitive behavioral therapy concepts for patients and caregivers and