Connect & Learn: Social Connection, Pain and Opioid Use: the OP-ALMA Social Prescribing Project at Turning Point, presented by Dr Shalini Arunogiri on the 26th of November 2021

3 Dec 2021

One in three older Australians live with chronic pain and it is estimated to be Australia’s third most costly health problem.

Overview

For many older adults living with chronic pain, dependence on opioid medications can develop over time, underpinned by social and psychological factors that perpetuate pain. This project aims to explore the role of social prescribing in addressing loneliness and social connection in older adults living with pain. The pilot program tested a novel way of delivering social prescribing, with linkage to online connections during COVID-19. The webinar will focus on key takeaways for frontline clinicians working in AOD and community health services who may want to test social prescribing in their own services.

About the presenter

Dr Shalini Arunogiri: is a consultant addiction psychiatrist and clinician researcher. She is Deputy Clinical Director at Turning Point and Deputy Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Central Clinical School, Monash University. Shalini is Chair of the RANZCP Binational Faculty of Addiction Psychiatry.

Her clinical and research interests include methamphetamine use and mental health problems, and women’s health and addictive disorders. She is an investigator on multiple Australian clinical trials of medication treatments for addiction, including the N-ICE and LiMA trials for methamphetamine use disorder. She is also mum to an energetic five year-old boy and a passionate advocate for women in medicine and academia.