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The prevalence of opioid use disorder (OUD) among older adults in the United States is rising, but remains underdiagnosed, underreported, and inadequately managed. Older adults with OUD often have medical comorbidities and are at higher risk of complications. This webinar provides guidelines for evaluating older adults with OUD, the management of opioid withdrawal syndrome and maintenance treatment of OUD, including MOUD and psychosocial interventions.

This session focuses on addressing opioid use disorder (OUD) in acute care settings, where treatment decisions often fall to them and carry lasting consequences for patients. This session walks through identifying OUD, assessing withdrawal, and choosing the right medication treatment when fentanyl exposure, pain, trauma, and psychiatric comorbidity complicate the picture. Participants will work through standard and alternative buprenorphine induction strategies, methadone initiation, and how to manage precipitated withdrawal when things do not go as planned. We will close with disposition planning, naloxone provision, discharge prescribing, and how to build a warm handoff that actually holds.

This session explores the complex relationship between nicotine and opioid use, including shared biological pathways and how co-use can intensify pain, cravings, and withdrawal. Patients may rely on nicotine to manage stress or withdrawal symptoms, creating a reinforcing cycle that complicates recovery. Integrating treatment for both conditions is increasingly recognized as essential to improving long-term outcomes.

This presentation focuses on one of the most treatable yet undertreated illnesses in adolescent psychiatry: opioid use disorder. Although effective medications exist, fewer adolescents diagnosed with OUD receive medication treatment. We will learn to identify these patients and initiate lifesaving care. 

The history of pain management in the US is fraught with changes in practice and finding new and more holistic ways to work with individuals with chronic pain for social workers and other non-prescriber providers.  In this webinar, learn about the history of pain management, how to assess risk of developing opioid use disorders, health promotion factors for people who use opioids, including overdose reversal, and macro approaches to the risks of substance misuse.

This webinar provides an exploration of recovery capital and its critical role in shaping outcomes for individuals with substance use disorders, particularly opioid use disorder (OUD). Grounded in contemporary and historic definitions of recovery, participants will examine recovery as a dynamic, multidimensional process that extends beyond symptom reduction to include improvements in health, purpose, community connection, and overall quality of life.