8-1 & 8-2 Students Comments: Addiction And Mental Disorder

8-1 & 8-2 Students Comments
Name
Institution
Date
Question 8-1
Aileen
I agree with Aileen that there are several co-morbidities associated with addiction and mental disorder. It is not easy to explain which disorder came first because the diagnosis of mental illness may not be possible until the symptoms have reached a specific level. According to NIDA (2010). Some clinical symptoms prompt drug use causing inaccurate recall of when drug use or abuse started. Patients with schizophrenia use tobacco while nicotine helps in compensating for cognitive impairment caused by the disorder. Schizophrenia patients using antipsychotic drugs administered orally on a daily basis hence causing addiction in the end. When the first antipsychotic drugs were introduced in 1950, their interaction with the brain was a mystery (Brady et al., 2013).
Elizabeth
It is true that there is not one that causes the other, but for mental illness, one needs to take something to alleviate pain which later turns into an addiction. If addiction comes first, this means, that someone had an addiction first that eventually caused a mental illness. For example, people who use marijuana is likely to develop long-term mental disorders like depression or mood disorder (Hall & Degenhardt, 2008). When mental illness comes, first it means that people with a condition need to take a lot of medication, taking these drugs can lead to worse situation turning into an addiction.
Question 8-2
Aileen,
I concur with Aileen that anxiety disorders are caused several factors, there need for specific diagnosis because people respond differently to pharmacotherapy. The best way to incorporate psychopharmacological treatment among patients with anxiety and addiction is to use long half-life drugs like benzodiazepines, or methadone combined with weeks of abstinence to treat withdrawal symptoms (Cassano, Rossi, & Pini, 2002). Other drugs like Tricyclic antidepressants and Topamax produce positive results in treating cocaine user with symptoms of anxiety. However, benzodiazepines are not recommended because they weaken treatment for addiction, a methadone maintenance program, or buprenorphine treatment is not suitable for cocaine users (Cassano, Rossi, & Pini, 2002).
Jeannine,
It is also appropriate that patients visit a psychiatrist to determine the best treatment approach, but Prozac or Xanax are commonly prescribed. Any medication that is not helpful for mental illness should be prescribed, and patients need to be monit...