Methadone Stabilization: A Case Study

America has a major problem with opioid addicts, and many facilities are helping the addicts by providing safer options to taking the drugs their bodies crave. Methadone clinics are places where people addicted to opioids can receive medicine-based therapy. Opioid use, drugs such as heroin, morphine, and prescribed painkillers, has increased in the US with all age groups and incomes. People become addicted to these drugs when they are prescribed, recreationally used with other addicts, or they are born addicted. Many health institutions are addressing this issue with an estimated 2.1 million people in the United States suffering from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers in 2012 and an estimated 467,000 addicted

It seems each year that the automobile accidents increase, and there are a high number of death and injuries that follow. Records show that nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes and 20-50 million are injured. More than half of all traffic death occur among young adults 15-44 years of age( ). Accidents can happen at any time and can be caused by many reasons such as rain, speeding, drug, or alcohol. An automobile accident is what brought the 16-year-old boy to the emergency to be care for by the medical staff there. The patient was seen by the ER staff for several hours, and he was admitted later in the inpatient unit for observation. The next morning when staff tried waking the patient he was died.

THESIS STATEMENT: To investigate Methadone maintenance is found to be more effective in treating heroin addiction than 180 day detoxification. The objective is how methadone maintenance, a widely used but controversial method of weaning heroin addicts off the drug—with counseling has psychosocially enriched 180 day methadone assisted detoxification.

Post World War II New York City was faced with a major heroin epidemic with over 151,000 names listed in the Narcotics Register (Herman). As a medical response, methadone was developed to treat heroin addiction (Herman). Today methadone maintenance treatment has grown to become a popular therapy for drug addiction as well as pain management. Methadone has helped many people to create new lives for themselves, yet there is still debate over the success of this program. Methadone assisted treatment should be seen as an effective program in combating opioid addiction due to its health and social benefits for both users and the community.

69,000 patients in substance abuse treatment revealed that methadone was fourth for risk of abuse out of 11 opiate based prescription drugs. Worse, after adjustment for prescriptions, methadone advanced to the number one position for abused compounds. Even more startling was a simple random population sample, surveyed by telephone, which reported methadone as the second most used drug. However, Butler et al. cite a major limitation in that the data examined came from subjects who had entered treatment for substance use disorders. Like Plater et al. (2012) aside from the telephone survey, they were unable to examine data for abusers not in treatment (2011).

The purpose of this briefing memo is to provide recommendations to Council of City ABC on certain aspects it may or may not include in its zoning provisions with regard to methadone clinics and dispensaries. In the following sections I will provide my input on the provisions laid out by council.

included in The Harrison Act, that was supposed to protect physicians, “in the course of

Methadone misuse leads to flash visual evoked potentials in newborns. In the article by McGlone, Hamilton, McCulloch, Boulton, Bradnam, Weaver, & Mactier (2013), they conduct a study about mothers who abuse drugs and are prescribe methadone and end up misusing the methadone. The infants of the women end up being born with abnormal flash VEPs. The researchers concluded that the abnormality is due in part to the prescribed methadone and not the other drugs that these women were abusing. A control group was implemented to compare the flash VEP with healthy, drug free infants. It is also concluded that methadone binds to ocular as well as to brain tissues, which explains why it has an adverse effect on the infants visual and neurologic development.

Throughout the case of how Ashley had ingested the methadone, there had been many inferences being constructed. Through all the inferences, none of them are fully explaining everything that had happen that night on the cruise ship. All of the inferences are focusing on how the fiancé might have been involved in the ingested methadone, but hardly any are focusing on anything else. Due to Ashley consuming alcohol that night, the abortion causing her to be exhausted with emotion, is is very clear that she had mistaken the methadone for NyQuil and thus causing this case to be an accidental suicide.

There were no Cochrane meta-analyses or systematic reviews for comparing methadone and Suboxone maintenance treatment head-to-head. There were 8 trials that had specific populations or were under-powered that I had difficulty choosing between. Before I tried deciding between these articles, I chose to search Medline for any more leads. After searching Medline, I found a rapid response report by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health that compared Suboxone and methadone head-to-head. After looking into this review more, many of the trials I was considering choosing from Cochrane were included in the study, such as one by McKeganey, Russell, Cockayne (2013) which compared methadone and Suboxone in context of opioid

Pt. has been in the program for over 3 years and she is currently in Phase 0. Pt. has participated in the AMS of De methadone clinic, she has been able to achieve abstinence from illicit drugs but she is failing to comply with the mandatory counseling sessions. Pt. is now eligible to receive phase 1 take home privileges if she maintains satisfactory attendance and scheduled appointments. Pt. identified her children as a motivational factor to change and to reinforce the importance of remaining in recovery. Pt. was advised to obtain a sponsor and attend 12 Step meetings. Pt. has done in achieving her goal of maintaining financial compliance despite the holiday financial stress. Pt. seemed to accumulate a back balance, but normally pays for late account balance in full upon notice of an administrative taper.

Pharmacy has been consulted regarding: How do the outcomes compare between buprenorphine-containing treatment options and methadone in opioid-dependent patients in terms of efficacy?

D-The patient arrived on time for her appointment. Reported stable on her new current dose. Deny craving and withdrawals. According to the patient, her weekend was good and again, happy to have her take home bottles. Then the patient reported, she continues to keep all appointments with her mental health provider and its going very well. This writer then discussed with the patient about the next step to her recovery. The patient reported, she wants to continue with her methadone until she's ready to start tapering off on the methadone. The patient has some fears to tapering off on her methadone because she does not want to experience any craving and have a relapse.

For this assignment I choice to do Methadone. I found my information through the following; Websites, New articles, Health Unit, Drug References and magazines. Methadone is a high alert drug it is use to teat many different disorder such as Symptoms from Stopping Treatment with Opioid Drugs, Narcotic Addiction, Severe Pain, Chronic

Although I am not sure if I would be able to do this I was thinking about observing the Cumberland Methadone clinic for an afternoon. It is open Monday-Saturday in LaVale and I think describing the waiting room and those who come in and out over the span of a few hours might make bring the story to a human level. Maybe one patient will remind someone of his or her neighbor, friend, or sibling. The problems I could see with this however would be doctor/patient confidentiality and the fact that I am not sure if I could sit in a doctor’s office inconspicuously for an afternoon without being questioned. I am open to suggestions for other physical spaces I could observe or describe.