Dual Diagnosis:
So many times people are diagnosed with a variety of mental illnesses. The fear of being honest with a medical professional is overwhelming and people are not reporting to their Doctors that they are abusing street drugs, alcohol or prescription medication. This is a severe problem and knowing the truth about dual diagnosis is so important in order to give hope to those who suffer and the families that love them.
2/3 of the patients checking-in to receive substance abuse treatment display signs of dual diagnosis (Falls-Stewart & Lucente). Dual Diagnosis is when a person suffers from a form of mental illness and they also abuse chemicals (alcohol included). The biggest misconception is assessing the person to have a certain mental illness that is being induced by the chemical being abused; unknowingly due to dishonesty.
If a person truly has a mental illness, the sickness will display itself early in age – usually around 18-22 years old, sometimes even younger. Substances can also make mental illnesses surface later in age. Substances cause behaviors that are very similar to several different mental illnesses.
The only way to really tell if someone is truly mentally ill is to allow the person to detox from the substances that they are abusing and then make an assessment that is beneficiary to their needs. In most cases their mental issue behaviors are caused by the substances and will completely go away once the substance has completely left their system.
Dual diagnosis is a tricky and sensitive issue. Most addicts want to diagnose themselves, prolonging their disease, not knowing that the substances they are using; cause 99% of their problems. It can take 3 days to 8 weeks to fully detox and give a proper diagnosis to ones health issues.
It is so sad to watch people suffer from dual diagnosis while they are their disease; the good news is that there is a solution! In the Washington Post there is a very informative, yet sad article about a guy name “Danny” who severely suffered from dual diagnosis. Read this article to help bring awareness in order to help prevent this sad story from happening again:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/07/27/ST2009072702451.html?sid=ST2009072702451
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Don't forget to let
Don't forget to let your friends know about tonight 9pm A&E all new Intervention.. Thanks for passing it on.. It helps people be aware how to save a loved one from addiction...
Friday, August 7, 2009
Have a great weekend
Have a great weekend but remember Monday 9pm a all new Intervention on A&E Tell your friends..
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Drunk Driving Tragedy
A mother drank vodka and smoked marijuana while taking a vanload of children home from a weekend camping trip that ended in disaster when she went the wrong way on a highway and crashed into an SUV, killing eight people, police said Tuesday.
Diane Schuler, who died along with her 2-year-old daughter and three nieces in her red minivan, had more than 10 drinks of alcohol in her system and a high level of the main ingredient in marijuana, authorities said. A broken 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found in her wrecked minivan, police said.
The revelations from the 36-year-old Long Island woman's autopsy helped explain how the woman her family called "an accomplished working mother who always put her children before any other priorities" wound up driving the wrong way for nearly two miles on a suburban parkway before slamming into the SUV.
The July 26 crash on the Taconic State Parkway, about 35 miles northwest of New York City, also killed three men in the SUV. Schuler's 5-year-old son, in her minivan, survived.
Investigators said Schuler had been driving erratically on other upstate roads before getting on the highway for the 140-mile trip home.
Schuler's blood-alcohol level was well above the legal limit, and she still had undigested alcohol in her stomach, State Police Maj. William Carey said Tuesday.
Blood tests also showed she had smoked marijuana 15 minutes to an hour before the crash, said Betsy Spratt, chief toxicologist for the Westchester County medical examiner.
"With that level of alcohol ... she would have had difficulty with perception, with her judgment, with her memory," Spratt said. "You start to get what we call tunnel vision."
Police said no criminal charges were planned in the case.
Roseann Guzzo, whose father and brother were killed in the SUV, said Tuesday her family wanted to meet with prosecutors to discuss the case.
"We're outraged by it," she said. "It's a choice she made. And that choice she made to us is like she committed murder."
State police have been investigating why Schuler, who was a regular upstate campground visitor, would have been driving toward her home the wrong way on a highway she had driven many times before.
Toxicology reports found the businesswoman's blood-alcohol level was 0.19, more than twice the state's legal limit of 0.08, Carey said. She also had 6 grams of undigested alcohol in her stomach, Carey said.
Schuler's husband, Daniel, told investigators that everything seemed fine when he and his wife left the Sullivan County campground at about 9:30 a.m. on the morning of the crash. He went on a fishing trip while his wife headed home with the children, stopping at a McDonald's on the way, police said.
Her brother, the father of the three girls who died, said she called him about a half-hour before the wreck sounding disoriented and saying she didn't feel well. Schuler's 8-year-old niece also spoke briefly with her father from the highway. The woman's cell phone was later found abandoned at a rest stop.
Witnesses said they saw Schuler's minivan straddling two lanes and tailgating, with its headlights flashing and horn beeping.
Others saw the vehicle veering from one lane to another, and one witness said it appeared as if she was attempting to pass him on the shoulder of the highway. Another witness said the van drove across a grass divider at a service area.
Six drivers called 911 before the collision, which happened after Schuler drove 1.7 miles south in the parkway's northbound lane.
An attorney who served as a family spokesman at funerals last week did not immediately return a telephone message left by The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Floral Park village police blocked access to the home of Schuler's brother and said no one was there to comment. There was no answer when a reporter knocked on the door of the Schuler family home in West Babylon.
Neither Schuler's husband nor extended family has spoken with reporters about the crash. The families issued a statement last week calling Schuler "a devoted mother to her children, Bryan and Erin."
"She was a constant, doting presence in her nieces' lives, and our extended family admired her competence, ease with children and sense of humor," it said. "Never has there been a more responsible and trusted friend or caregiver."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/08/02/national/a112012D22.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0NL5OAlRw
Diane Schuler, who died along with her 2-year-old daughter and three nieces in her red minivan, had more than 10 drinks of alcohol in her system and a high level of the main ingredient in marijuana, authorities said. A broken 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found in her wrecked minivan, police said.
The revelations from the 36-year-old Long Island woman's autopsy helped explain how the woman her family called "an accomplished working mother who always put her children before any other priorities" wound up driving the wrong way for nearly two miles on a suburban parkway before slamming into the SUV.
The July 26 crash on the Taconic State Parkway, about 35 miles northwest of New York City, also killed three men in the SUV. Schuler's 5-year-old son, in her minivan, survived.
Investigators said Schuler had been driving erratically on other upstate roads before getting on the highway for the 140-mile trip home.
Schuler's blood-alcohol level was well above the legal limit, and she still had undigested alcohol in her stomach, State Police Maj. William Carey said Tuesday.
Blood tests also showed she had smoked marijuana 15 minutes to an hour before the crash, said Betsy Spratt, chief toxicologist for the Westchester County medical examiner.
"With that level of alcohol ... she would have had difficulty with perception, with her judgment, with her memory," Spratt said. "You start to get what we call tunnel vision."
Police said no criminal charges were planned in the case.
Roseann Guzzo, whose father and brother were killed in the SUV, said Tuesday her family wanted to meet with prosecutors to discuss the case.
"We're outraged by it," she said. "It's a choice she made. And that choice she made to us is like she committed murder."
State police have been investigating why Schuler, who was a regular upstate campground visitor, would have been driving toward her home the wrong way on a highway she had driven many times before.
Toxicology reports found the businesswoman's blood-alcohol level was 0.19, more than twice the state's legal limit of 0.08, Carey said. She also had 6 grams of undigested alcohol in her stomach, Carey said.
Schuler's husband, Daniel, told investigators that everything seemed fine when he and his wife left the Sullivan County campground at about 9:30 a.m. on the morning of the crash. He went on a fishing trip while his wife headed home with the children, stopping at a McDonald's on the way, police said.
Her brother, the father of the three girls who died, said she called him about a half-hour before the wreck sounding disoriented and saying she didn't feel well. Schuler's 8-year-old niece also spoke briefly with her father from the highway. The woman's cell phone was later found abandoned at a rest stop.
Witnesses said they saw Schuler's minivan straddling two lanes and tailgating, with its headlights flashing and horn beeping.
Others saw the vehicle veering from one lane to another, and one witness said it appeared as if she was attempting to pass him on the shoulder of the highway. Another witness said the van drove across a grass divider at a service area.
Six drivers called 911 before the collision, which happened after Schuler drove 1.7 miles south in the parkway's northbound lane.
An attorney who served as a family spokesman at funerals last week did not immediately return a telephone message left by The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Floral Park village police blocked access to the home of Schuler's brother and said no one was there to comment. There was no answer when a reporter knocked on the door of the Schuler family home in West Babylon.
Neither Schuler's husband nor extended family has spoken with reporters about the crash. The families issued a statement last week calling Schuler "a devoted mother to her children, Bryan and Erin."
"She was a constant, doting presence in her nieces' lives, and our extended family admired her competence, ease with children and sense of humor," it said. "Never has there been a more responsible and trusted friend or caregiver."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/08/02/national/a112012D22.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0NL5OAlRw
Monday, August 3, 2009
Antidepressant use doubles in U.S., study finds
Antidepressant use doubles in U.S., study finds
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday.
About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 -- 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found.
"Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans," Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
"Not only are more U.S. residents being treated with antidepressants, but also those who are being treated are receiving more antidepressant prescriptions," they added.
More than 164 million prescriptions were written in 2008 for antidepressants, totaling $9.6 billion in U.S. sales, according to IMS Health.
Drugs that affect the brain chemical serotonin like GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil, known generically as paroxetine, and Eli Lilly and Co's Prozac, known generically as fluoxetine, are the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressant. But the study found the effect in all classes of the drugs.
Olfson and Marcus looked at the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys done by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, involving more than 50,000 people in 1996 and 2005.
"During this period, individuals treated with antidepressants became more likely to also receive treatment with antipsychotic medications and less likely to undergo psychotherapy," they wrote.
SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE
The survey did not look at why, but the researchers made some educated guesses. It may be more socially acceptable to be diagnosed with and treated for depression, they said. The availability of new drugs may also have been a factor.
"Although there was little change in total promotional spending for antidepressants between 1999 ($0.98 billion) and 2005 ($1.02 billion), there was a marked increase in the percentage of this spending that was devoted to direct-to consumer advertising, from 3.3 percent ($32 million) to 12 percent ($122.00 million)," they added.
Dr. Eric Caine of the University of Rochester in New York said he was concerned by the findings. "Antidepressants are only moderately effective on population level," he said in a telephone interview.
Caine, who was not involved in the research, noted that several studies show therapy is as effective as, if not more effective than, drug use alone.
"There are no data to say that the population is healthier. Indeed, the suicide rate in the middle years of life has been climbing," he said.
Olfson and Marcus said out-of-pocket costs for psychotherapy and lower insurance coverage for such visits may have driven patients away from seeing therapists in favor of an easy-to-prescribe pill.
The rise in antidepressant prescriptions also is seen despite a series of public health warnings on use of antidepressant drugs beginning in 2003 after clinical trials showed they increased the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children and teens.
In February 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration added its strongest warning, a so-called black box, on the use of all antidepressants in children and teens.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday.
About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 -- 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found.
"Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans," Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
"Not only are more U.S. residents being treated with antidepressants, but also those who are being treated are receiving more antidepressant prescriptions," they added.
More than 164 million prescriptions were written in 2008 for antidepressants, totaling $9.6 billion in U.S. sales, according to IMS Health.
Drugs that affect the brain chemical serotonin like GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil, known generically as paroxetine, and Eli Lilly and Co's Prozac, known generically as fluoxetine, are the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressant. But the study found the effect in all classes of the drugs.
Olfson and Marcus looked at the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys done by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, involving more than 50,000 people in 1996 and 2005.
"During this period, individuals treated with antidepressants became more likely to also receive treatment with antipsychotic medications and less likely to undergo psychotherapy," they wrote.
SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE
The survey did not look at why, but the researchers made some educated guesses. It may be more socially acceptable to be diagnosed with and treated for depression, they said. The availability of new drugs may also have been a factor.
"Although there was little change in total promotional spending for antidepressants between 1999 ($0.98 billion) and 2005 ($1.02 billion), there was a marked increase in the percentage of this spending that was devoted to direct-to consumer advertising, from 3.3 percent ($32 million) to 12 percent ($122.00 million)," they added.
Dr. Eric Caine of the University of Rochester in New York said he was concerned by the findings. "Antidepressants are only moderately effective on population level," he said in a telephone interview.
Caine, who was not involved in the research, noted that several studies show therapy is as effective as, if not more effective than, drug use alone.
"There are no data to say that the population is healthier. Indeed, the suicide rate in the middle years of life has been climbing," he said.
Olfson and Marcus said out-of-pocket costs for psychotherapy and lower insurance coverage for such visits may have driven patients away from seeing therapists in favor of an easy-to-prescribe pill.
The rise in antidepressant prescriptions also is seen despite a series of public health warnings on use of antidepressant drugs beginning in 2003 after clinical trials showed they increased the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children and teens.
In February 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration added its strongest warning, a so-called black box, on the use of all antidepressants in children and teens.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
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