Archive for the ‘Drug Addiction Treatment’ Category
How can drug addiction treatment help reduce the spread of HIV / AIDS and other infectious diseases?
Many drug addicts, such as those addicted to heroin or cocaine, particularly those who inject drugs are at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases like hepatitis, tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted infections. For these individuals and the community in general, the drug treatment used to prevent disease.
People who inject drugs and do not enter treatment are six times more likely to be infected with HIV as people who inject but enter and remain in treatment. People who use drugs but enter and remain in treatment reduce their participation in activities that can spread disease, such as sharing injection and engage in sexual activity without protection. Participation in treatment also presents the opportunity to be selected and receive counseling or therapy as well as additional services. The best treatment programs for drug abuse provide HIV counseling and offer their patients lab tests to detect HIV.
Why drug addicts can not quit their addiction without help?
Nearly all addicts believe they can start to stop using drugs on their own, and most try to stop without receiving any treatment. However, many of these attempts fail when you want to achieve long-term abstinence. Research has shown that drug use produces long-term significant changes in brain function that persist long after the individual stops using drugs. These changes in brain function caused by drugs can have severe consequences on behavior, including the urge to use drugs despite adverse consequences, the defining characteristic of addiction.
The fact that addiction has an important biological component may help explain the difficulty that people have to achieve abstinence without treatment. The psychological pressure of work or family problems, social cues (such as meeting individuals from the past who used drugs), or the environment (as found in certain streets, see some objects or even feel odors associated with drug use ) may act in conjunction with biological factors to hinder attainment of sustained abstinence and this makes it more likely to relapse. Research indicates that even individuals with more severe addiction can actively participate in treatment and that active participation is essential to achieve positive results.
Information about treatment for cocaine addiction
Cocaine, a stimulant, mimics the effects of chemicals produced in the brain to send messages of pleasure, reward center in the brain. Like adrenaline, cocaine increases heart rate, blood pressure and respiration rate. Feelings when arousal is too high, anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, and anger can produce progress on the potentially fatal attacks and stroke.
Treatments for Drug addiction vary on many factors including the severity and duration of symptoms, the amount of damage caused by cocaine, and recovery. The most common symptoms of addiction are generally noted the desire for drugs, irritability, loss of energy, depression, anxiety, tremors want too much or insomnia, nausea and palpitations, sweating, hyperventilation, increased appetite and sleep. These symptoms can usually take several weeks – even after cessation of cocaine.
Drugs for treating cocaine addiction are not yet available, although researchers are working feverishly to identify and test new features. The drug appears to be promising experimental selegiline force still needs an appropriate method of administration. Disulfiram, a drug used to treat alcoholism, has proved to be somewhat “effective in the treatment of cocaine abuse during clinical trials. Antidepressants are prescribed primarily to treat mood swings, usually cocaine withdrawal. Treatments have been developed to deal with an overdose of cocaine.
Edits, such as cognitive behavioral skills to adapt to be effective in treating cocaine addiction, but there are only a short-term approach that focuses on the learning process. Behavioral therapy to help patients recognize, prevent and treat conditions that lead to use cocaine again.
This treatment is dedicated doctors, nurses and therapists, treatment programs to recognize the severity of addiction. On the basis that treatment programs provide well-documented medical techniques, the best choice for patients of all types of treatment available.
How effective is the treatment for drug addiction?
In addition to stopping drug use, the goal of treatment is for the private individual to productive functioning in the family, work, and community. Ways to measure the effectiveness of treatment typically include levels of criminal behavior, functioning within the family, work, and medical condition. In general, treatment for addiction is as successful as the treatment of other chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma.
According to several studies, drug treatment reduces the use of those 40 to 60 percent and significantly decreases criminal activity during and after the treatment period. For example, a study of therapeutic community treatment for drug offenders (Drug Abuse Treatment in the United States) demonstrated that arrests for criminal acts both violent and nonviolent fell by 40 percent or more. Treatment using methadone has shown a reduction in criminal behavior up to 50 percent. Research also shows that drug treatment reduces the risk of HIV infection and that interventions to prevent HIV are much cheaper than treatment related to HIV disease. Treatment can improve employment prospects, an increase of up to 40 percent after treatment. Read the rest of this entry »
What is a treatment for drug addiction?
There are many addictive drugs and treatments for specific drugs can differ. Treatment also varies depending on patient characteristics.
The problems associated with drug addiction can vary significantly. People addicted to drugs come from all walks of life. Many suffer from mental problems, labor, physical, or social, which make their addictive disorders much more difficult to treat. Even in cases where there are few problems, the severity of addiction itself is not equal for all people.
A variety of scientifically based approaches to addiction treatment. The drug addiction treatment can include behavioral therapy (such as counseling, cognitive therapy or psychotherapy), medications or a combination of both. Behavioral therapies offer strategies for addicts to confront their drug cravings, teach them ways to avoid drugs and prevent relapse and help them deal with relapse if they do occur. When the drug-related behavior places the patient at high risk of contracting AIDS or other infectious diseases, behavioral therapies can help reduce the risk of disease transmission. For many patients, case management and the power be referred to other medical, psychological and social issues are essential components of treatment. Read the rest of this entry »
The First Steps in The Drug Treatment
The first and fundamental step in a possible drug treatment lies in the awareness by the individual addict.
By accepting the problem is that you can follow the path of detoxification and rehabilitation of the patient, if more than acceptance, there is a readiness and willingness to solve it.
The next step in the process, then the addict is willing to treatment is one of the toughest for the patient. This instance is the detoxification stage, where they have to cope with withdrawal symptoms.
The beginning of treatment
Any type of treatment for drug addiction, has a starting point that will give way to later rehabilitation process.
This rehabilitation process has obvious difficulties for the addict, which must be overcome with will and strength as well as containment by family and friends.
You could say that detoxification is the first major obstacle that must traverse the addicted, and then continue with the process of particular treatments.
Anyway, we can also mention a time prior to the detoxification itself can also be considered fundamental in any treatment.
Stimulant Drugs
Modern life is characterized by an incessant race activities, responsibilities and requirements. Work and study, by themselves, are very demanding, and more if done simultaneously.
The need for many people to respond effectively to these activities, leads to the consumption of pills that help support the business of the day.
The use of these drugs central nervous system stimulants, is one of the main options that make many people, even to meet those responsibilities.
The problem starts, no doubt, is installed on the addictive nature of these substances, many legal drugs.
Causes of Drug Addiction
There is no single cause to explain the addiction to drugs, but much s groups of causal factors, among which three stand out:
1 .- The drug (more or less addictive, frequency of use, dosage, prescription, etc.).
2 .- The individual
3 .- The environment
All factors are interdependent, which makes the knowledge of the initial factor of Drug Dependence.
Psychology, to examine specific needs, acknowledges the process of socialization, as a component in the formation of personality.
Addiction and Dependency Relation
Addiction is a state that an individual comes in different ways. The phenomena that are linked are tolerance, withdrawal dependence and sensitization. Tolerance refers to the reduction of the effects caused by drugs. In alcohol, for example, over the years of abuse by a person, the effects diminish, reaching the individual tolerance of the substance. This can also happen with the euphoric effect caused by the consumption of cocaine.
Tolerance is directly linked to the withdrawal. This state, which alcohol can occur in mild, moderate or severe, calling this state Delirium Tremens. The slowdown in consumption, both alcohol and any other substance, generated by the withdrawal, according to each drug.