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. The best programs provide a combination of therapies and other services to meet the needs of each patient, which is shaped by such issues as age, race, culture, sexual orientation, gender, pregnancy, parenthood, housing and work, plus the ability to have suffered physical or sexual abuse

Among them are already approved a monthly injection and a six-month implant already in final testing phase.

The main treatment options have long been the drugs administered once a day (as the controversial use of methadone or buprenorphine tablet called) that act as substitutes for the original drug in order to eliminate anxiety about the lack of Drug and wishes to have it but without the negative effect.

If the patient comes to miss a dose increases the risk of a relapse, but summon the strength of will every day to continue the treatment is “a formidable task,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, for its acronym in English) approved the use of Vivitrol monthly injection for long-term treatment for addiction to opiates such as heroin or painkillers like to morphine, OxyContin and Vicodin.

The injection of Vivitrol works differently than methadone or buprenorphine: Lock up the feeling if a recovering addict suffers a relapse and it is not addictive.

Scientists had tried for years to use a daily version of the main ingredient of Vivitrol, the naltrextona, but a huge number of patients failed to take their medication daily.

Therefore, laboratories Alkermes Inc. created a full-length version, first for alcoholism in 2006, and now an addiction to opiates.

In a study conducted in Russia with 250 heroin addicts, more than half of the patients treated with Vivitrol stuck to their therapy during the study period, which was six months.

Even better, 36% of patients had completely drug free, compared with 23% who received placebo injections.

Currently are testing an implant the size of a match for six months releases a low dose of buprenorphine in the bloodstream to maintain repressed desire for the drug.

A large study published last week found promising to implant, called Probuphine: Just over a third of patients treated with the implant were also tested drug free. Ongoing research, funded in part by the U.S. government must demonstrate to the next spring if you are ready for FDA review.

What kind of treatment will work best for each patient?

Scientists do not yet know, there are pros and cons in the versions of daily and long term. Early next year, NIDA compare treatments with monthly injection of Vivitrol with the tablet of buprenorphine daily and patients who received only behavior therapy in order to define what will be the best course of action.

However, longer term options promise to help keep patients in therapy longer.

“Opiate addicts are notoriously bad shots to comply with their medications. I like to take ‘holidays’ with drugs, they want to party on weekends,” said Dr. Katherine Beebe, of the firm Titan Pharmaceuticals, which is developing the implant Probuphine.

Approximately 800 000 people in America are addicted to heroin and another 1.8 million people have used or are dependent on opioid analgesics, Volkow added.

A mouse study conducted by the team of Ian Maze, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, found that chronic cocaine addiction prevented a specific enzyme to carry out its work of elimination of some genes in the brain’s pleasure circuits.

This effect was eager than rodents more drugs.

The research helps explain how cocaine use changes the brain, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study published in the journal Science.

“This discovery is enabling a new understanding of how the repeated use of drugs in the long term modifies the function of neurons,” Volkow said in a telephone interview.

For the study, the researchers administered to a group of young mice repeated doses of cocaine and other, repeated doses of saline and then single cocaine.

The authors found that one way that cocaine alters the brain’s reward circuitry is through repression 9A gene, which produces an enzyme that plays a key role in gene activation and deactivation.

Other studies have found that animals exposed to cocaine for a period of time are subject to drastic changes in how genes are turned on and off, and develop a strong preference for cocaine.

This work helps explain how this happens, Volkow said, and even lead to new ways of overcoming addiction.

In the study, Maze and his colleagues showed that these effects could be reversed by increasing the activity of the gene 9A.

“When that is done, completely reversed the effects of chronic use of cocaine,” he added.

Maze noted that this mechanism will not only reduce dependence on cocaine and could lead to a new area of research in addictions to other drugs, alcohol and even nicotine.

The fundamental characteristics of drug addiction treatment, consist of a series of consultations and medical interventions for the patient. In these sessions, medical, which can be given in different ways, seeks to support the addict in order to rehabilitate.

They are different techniques and forms of rehabilitation, adapting to the emergency department patient dependency, the risk of it and the properties of substances consumed. In turn, there are also differences according to the forms that can be used, according to the characteristics of each individual. There are treatments that, in most cases are characterized by individual.

The most important in a rehabilitation process is awareness on the part of the addict’s problem we have. If this step is taken, it is very important to the containment and support that family and friends can give. Well, the next step is the instance where you must deal with withdrawal syndrome.

Different types of treatment

The most important thing about the treatment of addictions, is that it is a process where the results become apparent if you have patience and perseverance in the presence of medical meetings. There are ways in which treatment plan is designed according to the individual. However, in the case of alcoholism in particular, presents the possibility of the group sessions, such as, for example associations of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Equally, in addiction to drugs and alcohol, it presents the possibility of individual process. In general terms, treatments consist of patterns of action, beyond the forms or techniques used.
These patterns are of a psychosocial, psychological, pharmacological and self-help. After the early stages, where it passes through withdrawal from drugs or alcohol, therapies are essential to control and no patient relapsed.

What is it?

Although often thought of addiction as a matter of will and were blamed for those affected only have to leave, the truth is that this is a disease, which comes in part motivated which often is accompanied by strong support from those around the addict.

And besides we are talking about the drug has produced biochemical changes in the brain of the patient and therefore effects are felt not only psychological but also physical (beyond the control of the patient), especially during the withdrawal syndrome that is the most feared, but for which there are options for treatment to help send.

Recovery Process

What is important to know from the start is that addiction to cocaine has no cure and that this involves a processing fee that ranges from react features

- The diagnostic, which takes into account the biological, psychological and social problems surrounding the issue, this part is crucial to distinguish this from other associated problems such as addictions to other substances such as alcohol and so on.

After that what we usually do is:

- Detoxify the body of the substance (for which it is sometimes necessary hospitalization). When this has been achieved, we must be clear what this means brain damage have no chemicals necessary for normal operation, especially dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the nervous system responsible for functions such as behavior, cognition, motor activity, motivation and reward, attention, learning, sleep or mood … because it has been replaced by cocaine, and to suppress the body that is produced is the syndrome abstinence: are conditions that present with symptoms often opposite to the effects of cocaine: depression, insomnia or hypersomnia, fatigue, irritability, agitation and psychiatric disorders.

At this point, some of the therapies are limited to control these symptoms of withdrawal, but what really matters is:

- Reset the brain damage that have occurred, especially in serotonergic and dopaminergic systems, this has been called neuroadaptation: This process is achieved through advanced drug treatment for which acts on brain receptors and systems and structures like the ventral tegental area (VTA), the core acumbbens and prefrontal cortex are also associated with withdrawal.

This will prevent the onset of withdrawal symptoms, thereby achieving one hand to control the intense desire to consume and yet cocaine are restored restoring parts of the brain affected cognitive and affective processes, recuperate calmness, attention span, among other issues essential to restore the lost equilibrium.

This should be subeditor under a team of professionals who make it possible to recover both physically and psychologically, combining drug treatments and cognitive-behavioral therapy, individually and collectively.