What Is the Effective Drug Rehab Treatment Approaches?

And sometimes, as with other chronic conditions, episodes of relapse may require a return to prior treatment components. A continuum of care that includes a customized treatment regimen—addressing all aspects of an individual’s life, including medical and mental health services—and follow–up options (e.g., community – or family-based recovery support systems) can be crucial to a person’s success in achieving and maintaining a drug–free lifestyle.

Principles of Effective Treatment

Scientific research since the mid–1970s shows that treatment can help patients addicted to drugs stop using, avoid relapse, and successfully recover their lives. Based on this research, key principles have emerged that should form the basis of any effective treatment programs:

Addiction is a complex but treatable disease that affects brain function and behavior.

No single treatment is appropriate for everyone.

Drug rehab Treatment needs to be readily available.

Effective treatment attends to multiple needs of the individual, not just his or her drug abuse.

Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical.

Counseling—individual and/or group—and other behavioral therapies are the most commonly used forms of drug abuse treatment.

Medications are an important element of treatment for many patients, especially when combined with counseling and other behavioral therapies.

An individual’s treatment and services plan must be assessed continually and modified as necessary to ensure that it meets his or her changing needs.

Many drug–addicted individuals also have other mental disorders.

Medically assisted detoxification is only the first stage of addiction treatment and by itself does little to change long–term drug abuse.

Treatment does not need to be voluntary to be effective.

Drug use during treatment must be monitored continuously, as lapses during treatment do occur.

Drug rehab Treatment programs should assess patients for the presence of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases as well as provide targeted risk–reduction counseling to help patients modify or change behaviors that place them at risk of contracting or spreading infectious diseases.