Historique
Article de Périodique
Evolution of concept, but not action, in addiction treatment (2012)
Auteur(s) :
ARRIA, A. M. ;
McLELLAN, A. T.
Année
2012
Page(s) :
1041-1048
Sous-type de document :
Revue de la littérature / Literature review
Langue(s) :
Anglais
Domaine :
Plusieurs produits / Several products
Résumé :
The Western approach to addiction treatment involves a medical or disease orientation to understanding the onset, course, and management of addiction, and a clinical goal of abstinence or very significant reductions in drug use, usually with a combination of behavioral and pharmacological interventions. Even within this Western approach, and despite several consensually accepted features of addiction, a significant mismatch remains between what this culture has come to accept as the nature of the disease and how that same culture continues to treat the disease. This paper discusses the evolution of these Western concepts over the past decade without a corresponding evolution in the nature, duration, or evaluation standards for addiction treatment. (1) Here, we take the position that continuing care and adaptive treatment protocols, combining behavioral therapies, family and social supports, and, where needed, medications show much promise to address the typically chronic, relapsing, and heterogeneous nature of most cases of serious addiction. By extension, methods to evaluate effectiveness of addiction treatment should focus upon the functional status of patients during the course of their treatment instead of post-treatment, as is the evaluation practice used with most other chronic illnesses.
Affiliation :
Center on Young Adult Health and Development, Department of Family Science, University of Maryland School of Public Health, College Park, Maryland, USA