rehab solutions


detox video

drug detoxification

Drug Rehab Detox or Drug detoxification is a collective of interventions directed at controlling acute drug intoxication and drug withdrawal. It refers to a purging from the body of the substances to which a patient is addicted and acutely under the influence. The process of detoxification aims at lessening the physical effects caused by the addictive substances. Detoxification programs do not necessarily treat the other aspects of drug addiction: namely, psychological aspects of addiction, social factors, and the often complex behavioral issues that are intermingled with addiction.

drug rehab detoxification image

There are typically three steps to drug detoxification:

  • Evaluation: Upon beginning drug detoxification, a patient is first tested to see which specific substances are presently circulating in their bloodstream and the amount. Clinicians also evaluate the patient for potential co-occurring disorders, dual diagnosis, and mental/behavioral issues.

  • Stabilization: In this stage, the patient is guided through the process of detoxification. This may be done with or without the use of medications but for the most part the former is more common. Also part of stabilization is explaining to the patient what to expect during treatment and the recovery process. Where appropriate, people close to the addict are brought in at this time to become involved and show support.

  • Guiding Patient into Treatment : The last step of the detoxification process is to ready the patient for the actual recovery process. As drug detoxification only deals with the physical dependency and addition to drugs, it does not address the psychological aspects of drug addiction. This stage entails obtaining agreement from the patient to complete the process by enrolling in a drug rehabilitation program.

    • Rapid Detoxification

    The often painful symptoms of drug withdrawal may last for several days and can stand as a barrier to the treatment of a drug abuse problem. Some practitioners use "rapid" or "ultra rapid" detoxification methods to condense the withdrawal process into a considerably shorter period of time, about two hours, while the addict is asleep. Rapid detox patients placed under anesthesia while given treatment drugs, such as naltrexone, can avoid the extreme pain associated with such treatments, say proponents, and bypass the major effects of withdrawal.

    Critics argue that the treatments can be very expensive and that safety has not been sufficiently deomonstrated.A 2005 clinical study on "ultra rapid detox" for heroin addicts, comparing buprenorphine-assisted or clonidine-assisted opioid detoxification to anesthesia-assisted detoxification, reported that anesthesia patients commonly underwent withdrawal when they awoke from, had a similar study dropout rate (approximately 80%), and some anesthesia patients experienced severe medical complications.Another 2005 study compared clonidine-assisted detoxification to (rapid) clonidine-naloxone precipitated withdrawal under anesthesia, reporting no significant differences in degree or duration of pain, withdrawal severity, or drug craving, with similar withdrawal sequelae, oral naltrexone compliance levels, and abstinence from heroin four weeks following detoxification.

    about drug detox

    usefull information