At times, a patient will enter rehab with an addiction to their prescription psych medications. This creates a tenuous situation for the addiction treatment specialist who needs to decide on a course of treatment. The difficulty comes if the patient’s prescription is necessary for them to function. Also, what about the patient who needs Methadone to get safely through a heroin detox program? These are familiar circumstance we deal with during our medication therapy management programs.
What is Medication Therapy Management?
Addiction treatment staff will employ a medication therapy management program when it’s necessary for a patient to continue taking medications. The premise of such a program is the patient should be able to use prescribed medications. However, they must do so under strict guidelines. For the most part, a clinician will design a program as a bridge to get the patient past their addiction.
As we indicated above, there are two circumstances when medication therapy management might be the best option. The first is during the detox process. The second would be when the patient is dealing with co-existing conditions. In the latter circumstance, we refer to patients who need medications for their psychological disorders. If they become addicted to those medications or any other medications with similar properties, there’s a conflict.
A Medication Therapy Management Program for Detox
With some forms of opiate addiction, tapering medications can be the difference between safety and danger during detox. When a doctor prescribes medications like Methadone or Buprenorphine, they do so with a specific plan in mind. That plan is part of the medication therapy management process.
When it’s necessary, we use a medication therapy management Florida program. Our clinicians carefully determine how to integrate tapering drugs with our detox programs. At all times, the patient’s welfare is our top concern. It really is a balancing act. We are prescribing medications to patients who are addicted to drugs that have the same properties. With one mistake, the patient develops an addiction to their tapering medication instead of heroin or painkillers. That’s not what chemical dependency treatment Florida trust should be about.
At the end of the day, the patient has to be free of all substances. That’s our directive with medication therapy management.
Dual Diagnosis Therapy for Co-Existing Conditions
If a patient has a substance addiction and a psychological disorder, they have co-existing conditions. An addiction treatment facility will immediately know they have to treat both conditions at the same time. Otherwise, the untreated condition will adversely affect the one that the treatment specialist manages.
A patient with psychological disorders like depression and anxiety might need medications to deal with their issues. In many cases, psych drugs are highly addictive, and that’s a problem. If psych medications created the addiction, a psychologist/clinician will have to consider alternative drugs or methods to deal with the disorder. If the addiction created the psychological disorder, a psychologist/clinician would have to decide if offering psych medications is appropriate.
A good medication therapy management program addresses these issues. With any luck, the solution will give the patient the safest path to recovery from addiction. At the same time, the answer will provide them with a secure process for coping with their psychological disorder(s).