Effects of Methadone on Olfactory Memory Span Melissa Deal In 2008, an estimated 268,000 individuals received methadone in certified opioid treatment programs in the United States in an effort to effectively treat an opiate addiction (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2010). Because of its high rate of use, a major concern regarding methadone maintenance is the possibil...

We report a case of high-dose methadone prescribed to a heroin addict for pain control. The patient was prescribed methadone during convalescence from surgery and subsequently for maintenance treatment. Dosing was started at 360 mg of methadone per day and reduced over 12 days to an 80 mg/day maintenance dose. Although the patient was drowsy on the initial dose, his recovery was uneventful. How...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether supervised medical prescription of heroin can successfully treat addicts who do not sufficiently benefit from methadone maintenance treatment. DESIGN Two open label randomised controlled trials. SETTING Methadone maintenance programmes in six cities in the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS 549 heroin addicts. INTERVENTIONS Inhalable heroin (n = 375) or injectable ...

conclusions it seems matrix group interventions increase the effectiveness of methadone treatment by reducing the relapse prevention, the dose of methadone and remaining in treatment. results results showed that the effect of matrix group interventions on reducing relapse (p < 0.05), increasing the maintenance of treatment (p < 0.01), increasing the treatment compliance, reducing anger, anxiety...

In this issue of Critical Care, Megarbane and colleagues present a case report of methadone-induced respiratory depression and conduct a toxicokinetic/toxicodynamic evaluation. An opioid-dependent patient receiving methadone maintenance treatment (daily dose 70 mg) was found unconscious after ingesting 240 mg methadone and 2 mg flunitrazepam. Significant improvement in consciousness was achieve...

OBJECTIVE Environmental drug-related cues have been implicated as a cause of illicit heroin use during methadone maintenance treatment of heroin dependence. The authors sought to identify the functional neuroanatomy of the brain response to visual heroin-related stimuli in methadone maintenance patients. METHOD Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to compare brain resp...

Accessible online at: http://BioMedNet.com/karger A consensus panel convened by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) today strongly recommended a broader access to methadone maintenance treatment programs for people who are addicted to heroin or other opiate drugs and that the Federal and State regulations and other barriers impeding this access be eliminated. Many people believe that opiate...