Dual Diagnosis

Dual diagnosis is the term that’s given to individuals having a mental illness and alcohol or substance abuse both occurring at the same time. Conditions like these occur frequently together within a person’s behavior.

Management of either one of these problems are stressful enough to the medical practitioner handling the case. To make things more complicated, adding the symptoms caused by a mental disorder that overlaps and may mask itself from the ability of the practitioner to recognize both events and make an accurate diagnosis. Inevitably, it’s a status which is complex, challenging and is extremely exhausting to all concerned.

It’s believed by professionals that the disorders should be treated in a way that addresses both illnesses. Simultaneous attempts must be made in order for cumulative effects to influence an individual’s personality and can greatly increase any risk for relapse upon recovery.

Dual Relationship

There is good evidence that both mental illness and substance dependence go hand-in-hand. Although, it
is still questionable which aggravates which. Experts are trying to figure out if the cause for the mental disorder is because of the abuse of the person in drugs or alcohol. Another contradictory factor is that when a person is already experiencing symptoms of mental illness, alcoholism soon follows because of the negative coping skills of the person.

Some professionals feel the psychiatric problems initiate the disorder. When the person can no longer deal with their issues, they self medicate in order to feel better, and this leads to chemical dependency. If a person is already at the brink of alcoholism or drug addiction, evidences of anxiety, depression and other emotional breakdowns are often present.

Whatever the cause is, the primary step in living a healthier and more productive life is to eradicate the
alcohol from the individual’s body as well as all the harmful and addictive substances. Detoxification is ideally done inside a rehabilitation center or under the supervision of a professional medical practitioner. The process can last for a couple of days and even weeks. It’ll all depend on the substances that the person has abused.

Dual diagnosis is sometimes referred to as co-existing morbidity or co-occurring disorders. Statistics show that in dual diagnosis, the split is about 53% drug dependency and about 38% of alcohol abuse. More or less, there are about fifty percent of individuals suffering from the severity of a mental disorder and is also being affected by the problem is substance dependency.

The possibility of indentifying co-existing disorders is vague. It is can be quite difficult on the part of the psychiatrist to hit two birds with one stone. Several symptoms of substance and drug abuse can be also be the same symptoms of mental illness some of which are depression, anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations and delusions. With these symptoms’ impact, the individual can no longer function in a proper and healthy state because of the decline in self-mobilization and self-care.

Dual diagnosis affects the lives of people around the individual suffering from it. Therefore, it is important that the family can also recognize the early symptoms for treatment to take place.

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