[An Experience of Providing Palliative Care in a Long-Term Care Facility: Let Good Death in Place Become a Feasible Reality].

As the number of elderly in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) continues to increase, the number of resident deaths in these facilities is expected to increase. Thus, LTCFs may become a main focus for end-of-life (EoL) care in the future. Therefore, promoting quality EoL care in LTCFs should be a priority issue.

Beneficial effects of co-treatment with dextromethorphan on prenatally methadone-exposed offspring.

Background: Heroin use among young women of reproductive age has drawn much attention around the world. Although methadone is widely used in maintenance therapy for heroin/morphine addiction, the long-term effects of prenatal exposure to methadone and preventative therapy remain unclear. For revealing this question, female pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were sub-grouped to receive (1) vehicle, (2) methadone 5 mg/kg at embryonic day 3 (E3) and then 7 mg/kg from E4 to E20, (3) dextromethorphan (DM) 3 mg/kg, and (4) methadone + DM (the rats received methadone followed by DM treatment), subcutaneously, twice a day from E3 to E20.

Low doses of dextromethorphan attenuate morphine-induced rewarding via the sigma-1 receptor at ventral tegmental area in rats.

Chronic use of morphine causes rewarding and behavioral sensitization, which may lead to the development of psychological craving. In our previous study, we found that a widely used antitussive dextromethorphan (known as a low affinity NMDA receptor antagonist), at doses of 10-20 mg/kg (i.p.