2011-11-15

Alcohol Detox Protocols

Alcohol detox or resignation is a duration of medically monitored treatment in which an alcoholic is helped and made to overcome symptoms of resignation that succeed from a significant decrease in alcohol consumption. Detox regularly lasts for a duration of three to fourteen days depending on the history of alcohol use. While this period, patients feel resignation symptoms, which consist of mild headaches, tremors, cold sweat, and severe seizures. Apart from these, there are also other symptoms linked to detox, which have been proven to cause complications and even death. This has created the need for healing practitioners to come up with specific treatments or protocols to treat these symptoms.

Assessing symptoms

Benzodiazepine Withdrawal

Given the comprehensive investigate and studies that have been done on the resignation symptoms linked with alcoholism, there is a wide selection of protocols that healing practitioners can choose from for their patients. However, a very prominent initial step that should be taken by healing practitioners is to correlate the symptoms of the sick person so that he can pick the most suitable protocol to treat the symptoms. One sufficient way to do this is to use the Ciwa-Ar instrument, which only takes a few minutes to administer. This instrument can portion the severity of alcohol resignation by rating ten signs and symptoms, which includes nausea; anxiety; tactile, optic and auditory disturbances; tremors; headaches; disorientation; autonomic hyperactivity; and agitation.

The Benzodiazepine Protocol

One of the most common protocols used to treat resignation symptoms is using Benzodiazepine drugs such as chlordiazepoxide or Librium, which are determined to be very sufficient in relieving these symptoms. In administering Benzodiazepine drugs, there are different medication regimens for treatment. One of these is to administer the drug in gradual and tapering doses, which is the most common used regimen because it can forestall symptoms from occurring. Other regimen is to administer the drug only in times that the sick person is exhibiting the symptoms. Other type of regimen is to give loading doses to the patient, wherein a sick person is give a large dose of medication on the first day of treatment, which studies have shown can effectively mitigate the occurrence of resignation symptoms.

Alcohol detox is a healing procedure, and as such, relieving the symptoms that patients exhibit while undergoing it should also involve healing interventions. Some of the most sufficient of these interventions are detox protocols or treatments, which are ways by which medication is administered to patients to relive resignation symptoms.

Alcohol Detox Protocols