Opioid use in Older Orthopedic Rehabilitation Inpatients: A Retrospective Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background: While there is much evidence about pain management for orthopedic patients in the immediate perioperative setting, little is known about how opioids are used during inpatient rehabilitation in the days and weeks that follow, particularly in older adults. A safe upper limit of 50 oral morphine equivalents (OME) is frequently cited in guidelines. This study’s objective is to characterize the use of opioids in an older adult population undergoing orthopedic rehabilitation. Methods: This is a retrospective observational study of adults aged ≥50 years old admitted for orthopedic rehabilitation between November 2019 and June 2021 at an academic rehabilitation hospital in Toronto, Canada. Acute care admissions preceding rehabilitation were for either a surgical or non-surgical orthopedic indication. Participants were divided into opioid-naïve individuals who received opioids, opioid-naïve individuals who did not receive opioids, and pre-existing chronic users of opioids. Demographic, clinical, and medication administration data were collected through the electronic health record and manual chart review. Average daily opioid dose for the first seven days of each stay was characterized using OME. Linear regression was used to assess for variables independently associated with opioid dose. Results: A total of 643 patients undergoing orthopedic rehabilitation were included: 125 (19.4%) involved chronic opioid users, 416 (64.7%) were opioid-naïve patients who received opioids, and 102 (15.9%) were opioid-naïve patients who did not receive opioids, with median age respectively of 72, 79, and 83. Median daily OME over the first week for chronic users was 30.3 and for opioid-naïve users was 6.9. Opioid dose was significantly positively associated with reported pain as defined by day 3 pain score and knee replacement; it was inversely associated with admission for a non-surgical indication and age. Conclusions: Opioids are frequently but heterogeneously used in older adults undergoing orthopedic rehabilitation. Median OME use in this cohort of older adults was substantially lower than the 50 OME threshold suggested in guidelines. Dedicated guidance for opioid use is warranted for this unique patient population.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".