Denver Health recently opened the first inpatient opioid detox unit for teenagers in the United States due to a lack of available options for adolescent patients. Many teens who land in emergency rooms with opioid overdoses are sent home without medications to ease their cravings, leading to relapses and sometimes tragic consequences. New research reveals that there is a shortage of medically managed withdrawal facilities for patients under 18 in most parts of the country. Only a small number of adolescent residential treatment facilities offer medications to help with the detox process. Denver Health’s adolescent inpatient detox unit aims to address this gap in care. However, the lack of specialized personnel and training, as well as financial constraints, present significant challenges in expanding such programs. While not all teens with opioid use disorder require inpatient detox, many face additional challenges, such as unstable family environments and co-occurring mental health conditions. To effectively address teen overdoses and addiction, a comprehensive approach that includes specialized care and integrated mental health treatment is necessary. Denver Health’s teen detox program, which incorporates medication-assisted therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, hopes to reduce the number of teen overdoses by providing continuous care and connecting patients to local addiction treatment programs after their discharge from the inpatient unit.
Adolescents grappling with addiction frequently undergo medication-free detoxification – The Mercury News
Denial of responsibility! Swift Telecast is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials, please contact us by email – swifttelecast.com. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.