Reducing the use of restraints involving multiple restraint incident patients is possible with a team-based approach and a specific intervention plan.

Mental health and chemical dependency clinicians have differing beliefs in regard to the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of dually diagnosed patients. The differing views of the relationship between psychopathology and chemical dependence often result in fragmented and inadequate care, with the patient being shunted back and forth between mental health and chemical dependence treatment facilities. This article includes a discussion of the impediments to effective and comprehensive treatment for dually diagnosed patients as well as a case history to illustrate commonly encountered difficulties. A model treatment approach for dually diagnosed patients is described to provide clinical guidelines for effective programing. In addition, a number of recommendations identify needed changes in the mental health and chemical dependency fields at the clinical and administrative levels.

Craving and relapse are complex, poorly understood phenomena. A distinctive and baffling characteristic of the disease of chemical dependency is the continuing impulse to use alcohol and/or other drugs, even after lengthy periods of sobriety. This article discusses relapse prevention, focusing on public-sector chemically dependent women. Relapse among these women must be seen in the total context of their lives. Poverty and social disorganization do not directly cause relapse, but problems related to daily life under such conditions represent significant risk factors. The Eagleville Hospital treatment model and relapse prevention programs are described, and it is noted that public-sector women typically present with problems related to being raised in addicted households, residing in drug-saturated inner-city environments, deficits in child-rearing skills, destructive (often abusive) relationships with men, social interactions involving other substance abusers, few (if any) work skills, minimal educational achievement, low self-esteem, and poor self-image. A case study illustrates the course of treatment and relapse prevention efforts with a typical public-sector chemically dependent woman.

The approval in 2003 for the use of buprenorphine in opiate addiction treatment has provided physicians with a new pharmacological tool to combat opiate addiction. We surveyed a sample of 100 inpatients who completed short-term opiate detoxification treatment utilizing a combination of buprenorphine and clonidine to assess patient perspectives regarding the usefulness and tolerability of this medication regimen and to compare it to their past opiate detox experiences, if any. Patients identified pain (63%), sleep problems (57%), and anxiety (56%) as the symptoms they perceived to be most helped with buprenorphine. Over 90% of patients with past detoxification treatments rated buprenorphine treatment to be as good as or better than their past treatments. Reports of a euphoric effect were minimal (7%) and no patients reported any generalized worsening of their opiate withdrawal symptoms. We conclude that based upon patient perspectives that combining buprenorphine with clonidine is a useful and well-tolerated medication regimen for the treatment of opiate withdrawal.

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