Vital Spark

Growing HOPE to Support OUD Recovery

Key Points From This Episode: * Tiffany shares the founding story of her organization, Heroes of the Prescription Epidemic (HOPE) * The two-part mission behind everything being done by HOPE. * Diversity of the HOPE board of directors and the value of this board to the organization. * Why Tiffany named her organization HOPE. * Problems with the traditional treatment methods of OUD. * Quantifying the opioid epidemic in the United States. * Types of organizations that HOPE is looking to partner with in order to achieve their mission. * The ripple effect of positivity that occurs when a person with OUD is assisted towards sobriety. * Three approaches that HOPE is using to achieve its goals. * Benefits of using bioelectric medicine to treat OUD. * Different routes to opioid addiction. * How you can get involved with HOPE. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Tiffany Wharton on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanywharton/] Heroes of the Prescription Epidemic (HOPE) [https://www.hopeempowers.co/] Daniel Wagner on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wagner-2a59137/] Spark Biomedical, Inc. [https://www.sparkbiomedical.com/]

Improving OUD Treatment with NAD+

On “Vital Spark,” host Daniel Wagner, the Chief Commercial Officer at Spark Medical, chats with Dr. Joel Hansen, the Chief Medical Officer at Altium Health, about the new, innovative IV treatment options and how IV treatment can significantly impact recovery for patients dealing with addiction.  Wagner and Hansen talked about * Different types of detoxification methods * The history and current state of IV treatment as a solution for ambulatory detox * How NAD+ IV benefits patients who undergo treatment with it  Dr. Joel Hansen is Chief Medical Officer at Altium Health, where he’s worked since 2019 and specializes in ambulatory detox. He previously worked in other treatment and recovery centers as a psychiatrist and medical director and is a graduate of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.  “NAD is one of those substances that helps clean up the nervous system, calm down the inflammatory response, so they showed some definite healing of neurons using NAD infusions for people with Alzheimer’s … When this NAD is added to a detox protocol then what they’re finding is that the healing process happens much more quickly and it tends to be longer acting,” said Hansen.

Treating Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome

On this episode of Vital Spark, our new host, Dan Wagner, Chief Commercial Officer of Spark Biomedical, spoke with two representatives from the Medical University of South Carolina. * Dorothea Jenkins, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Medical University of South Carolina Division of Neonatology, and  * Bashar Badran, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences Medical University of South Carolina, They are actively involved in treating this disorder and spoke about their combined efforts utilizing translational therapies with neurostimulation on babies with NOWS.  Jenkins and Badran discuss:  * The effects of certain opioids on the neurology of the brains of babies  * New non-evasive brain stimulation treatments to combat NOWS  * Learnings from utilizing auricular neurostimulation on babies with NOWS  “We are on track towards the better understanding of reasonable, high-ranking hypothesis that may be the reason why we get such beneficial effects of auricular neurostimulation,” Badran said.”  Dorothea Jenkins, M.D. is a professor of Pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina Division of Neonatology who does research and translational therapies for babies with brain injuries. Bashard Badran, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina. He is a neuroscientist who works on brain stimulation research and device development.

The Intersection of Pain and Addiction: Reviewing New CDC Opioid Guidelines

The CDC recently released an updated version of their 2016 opioid prescription guidelines for physicians. The new guidelines continue to use language stating opioids should not be first line of defense in chronic pain therapy. One of the major changes in the updated language was placing more emphasis on the physician’s clinical judgement for opioid prescription. Dr. Michael Sprintz, Founder and CEO at Sprintz Center and a national subject matter on chronic pain, joined Host Daniel Litwin to dive into the updates. In a COVID-19-focused world, the opioid crisis was forced to the back burner when it came to opioid-related media attention and national policy focus. Sadly, the not only did the opioid crisis not go away over the past few years, but the issue escalated. Dr. Sprintz notes, “Now we are seeing the consequences of those things play out, and it’s unfortunate.” Now, it’s time to refocus on opioid use disorder and how we treat the cause not just the symptoms. Dr. Sprintz comments, “It makes sense that we’d want to avoid using opioids if at all possible, when treating pain in general.” He added that it’s important “to try a multimodal approach to decrease that risk of exposing someone who may have a predisposition of developing addictive disease.” However, there is a time and place for opioid use, which is what the guideline updates establish. “Guidelines are guidelines. Guidelines are not laws,” Dr. Sprintz stated. “Clinicians should use their own judgement when making decisions.” They must evaluate the benefits versus the risks and decide what is best for the patient based on the individual and their condition. But this decision making is at the crux of the crisis. Pain doctors are not always comfortable managing addictive disorders and addiction doctors are not always comfortable dealing with chronic pain, which muddies the water. “One of the things that I would have liked to have seen from a policy level is starting to have core competency requirements in understanding the basics of pain medicine and the basics of addiction,” said Dr. Sprintz. “It’s not fair to just expect everyone to know something that they were never trained.” So how can physicians grapple with this? Dr. Sprintz believes managing opioid availability is part of solution, but it’s also about educating providers and making access to mental health and substance abuse treatment more widely available to patients via solutions like telehealth. Visit www.sparkbiomedical.com for previous episodes.

Wearable Neurostimulation Clinical Trial - Preparing a New Therapy for FDA Clearance (Part 2)

The data behind Spark Biomedical’s Sparrow Therapy System™ speaks volumes, but personal patient experiences speak even louder. Host Daniel Litwin and guest Dr. Carlos Tirado, MD, MPH review sound bites from Eliza, one of the Sparrow Therapy System clinical trial users, as she detailed her personal experience. In describing her experience with the Sparrow Therapy System, Eliza notes, “You don’t have to worry about waking up in the morning and waiting for our taper and getting sick and all this other stuff,” she stated. “It’s already helping you physically and mentally was one of the things I noticed. I didn’t feel foggy from the other paper meds, I just felt clear.” Dr. Tirado explains, “Because this it is a non-invasive, non-medical or non-pharmacologic approach, you’re not having to deal with the known adverse effects of medications that are used to treat withdrawal, or you can reduce the amount of medications used to treat withdrawal.” By reducing or eliminating taper medications, individuals can begin to participate in the hard work of therapy sooner — at a time they would normally be focused heavily on withdrawal symptoms. Eliza stated, “By day two, I wasn’t even really thinking about my withdrawals and so I think that’s probably what surprised me the most.” Removing fear of withdrawal from the recovery equation is critical. Dr. Tirado noted, “That true self is someone who is relieved of those symptoms, who can actually start making the next right decision,” he added. Currently, the Sparrow Therapy System is already being used by opioid use disorder treatment providers across the northeast and southern U.S. to treat opioid withdrawal. Spark Biomedical recently obtained a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant for the Sparrow Ascent, the next generation Sparrow Therapy system, to be used in the RESTORE clinical trial focused on using Transcutaneous Auricular Neurostimulation to improve relapse prevention in opioid use disorder. To learn more about the Sparrow Therapy System visit sparkbiomedical.com.