Treatment FAQ

what is the most effective treatment for its specific condition

by Miss Ettie Kozey MD Published 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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Effective treatments can be as simple as getting more exercise, or as extreme as hospitalization. Between those two poles, however, are the most common forms of treatment: medication and psychotherapy. Antidepressant medications have been well-studied for their efficacy.

Full Answer

Is there a single treatment that is appropriate for everyone?

No single treatment is appropriate for everyone. Treatment varies depending on the type of drug and the characteristics of the patients.

Why is it important that treatment be appropriate?

It is also important that treatment be appropriate to the individual’s age, gender, ethnicity, and culture. Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical. The appropriate duration for an individual depends on the type and degree of the patient’s problems and needs.

What are the most effective treatments for drug addiction?

Effective treatment addresses all of the patient’s needs, not just his or her drug use. Staying in treatment long enough is critical. Counseling and other behavioral therapies are the most commonly used forms of treatment. Medications are often an important part of treatment, especially when combined with behavioral therapies.

How do Clinicians choose the right treatment for each patient?

Planning and assigning a patient to a treatment that optimizes gains and fits the patient's needs is a shared objective among clinicians. However, selecting the most appropriate treatment for each patient can be a nebulous and unreliable task, varying by the clinician's biases and theoretical training and with uncertain or unmeasured results.

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What is the most effective treatment for addiction?

According to American Addiction Centers, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a valuable treatment tool because it can be used for many different types of addiction including, but not limited to, food addiction, alcohol addiction, and prescription drug addiction.

What is the most effective treatment for seasonal affective disorder?

Antidepressants are thought to be most effective if taken at the start of winter before symptoms appear, and continued until spring. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the preferred type of antidepressant for treating SAD.

What are the most commonly used forms of treatment?

Counseling and other behavioral therapies are the most commonly used forms of treatment.

What is effective treatment?

3. Effective Treatment Attends to Multiple Needs of the Individual, not just his or her drug use: To be effective, treatment must address the individual's drug use and any associated medical, psychological, social, vocational, and legal problems.

Does light therapy work for seasonal affective disorder?

Light therapy boxes can offer an effective treatment for seasonal affective disorder. Features such as light intensity, safety, cost and style are important considerations. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that typically occurs each year during fall and winter.

How can you help someone with seasonal affective disorder?

People suffering from seasonal affective disorder should try to get outside during daylight hours. Maximize sunlight – even inside. Rearranging furniture, opening curtains or moving desks closer to windows can help people get more indirect sunlight during winter months.

What are the principles of effective treatment?

To be effective, treatment must address the individual's drug abuse and any associated medical, psychological, social, vocational, and legal problems. It is also important that treatment be appropriate to the individual's age, gender, ethnicity, and culture.

Is treatment for drug dependence effective?

According to research that tracks individuals in treatment over extended periods, most people who get into and remain in treatment stop using drugs, decrease their criminal activity, and improve their occupational, social, and psychological functioning.

What is the medical term for treatment using drugs?

pharmacotherapy. [fahr″mah-ko-ther´ah-pe] treatment of disease with medicines.

How many principles of effective treatment are there?

In 1999, NIDA issued 13 principles of effective treatment for drug addiction, and these principles still hold true today. These were formulated after years of research and evidence that shows all of these must be applied together for treatment to be successful.

What are two principles of treatment?

The principles of treatment are to reduce the effect and kill the cause of the diseases. 2. Why can't antibiotics treat any viral infection?

What is an evidence based treatment?

Evidence-based treatment (EBT) refers to treatment that is backed by scientific evidence. That is, studies have been conducted and extensive research has been documented on a particular treatment, and it has proven to be successful.

Which is the most successful treatment for depression?

Psychotherapy Approaches: Which are Most Successful? More. There are many ways to treat depression successfully. Effective treatments can be as simple as getting more exercise, or as extreme as hospitalization. Between those two poles, however, are the most common forms of treatment: medication and psychotherapy .

What can a therapist do to help a patient with depression?

In other words, therapists can: Identify negative or distorted thinking patterns that often lead to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Identify specific life problems that contribute to depression and help patients understand how to solve or improve on those problems.

Why is CBT so good?

CBT may fare so well simply because “the CBT people have taken the ball and run studies to show CBT makes [patients] better, ” says Carl Tishler, a psychologist and adjunct associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at The Ohio State University.

Is problem solving therapy effective?

But it does report that problem-solving therapy, which it describes as a therapy that teaches patients to define personal problems, develop and try solutions to those problems, and then assess their effectiveness, has a moderate base of evidence that is “effective for treating depression.”.

Is CBT effective for depression?

But it does report that problem-solving therapy, which it describes as a therapy that teaches patients to define personal problems, develop and try solutions to those problems, and then assess their effectiveness, has a moderate base of evidence that is “effective for treating depression.”

Why are antibiotics reserved for bacterial infections?

Antibiotics are usually reserved for bacterial infections, because these types of drugs have no effect on illnesses caused by viruses. But sometimes it's difficult to tell which type of germ is at work. For example, pneumonia can be caused by a bacterium, a virus, a fungus or a parasite.

What doctor treats lung infections?

For example, a dermatologist specializes in skin conditions, and a pulmonologist treats lung disorders.

Can you take antifungal medication for a fungal infection?

Some fungal infections, such as those affecting the lungs or the mucous membranes, can be treated with an oral antifungal. More-severe internal organ fungal infections, especially in people with weakened immune systems, may require intravenous antifungal medications.

What is empirically supported treatment?

What are empirically supported treatments (EST)? It is assumed by most who would hear this term, that these treatments are based on rigorous empirical support. However, in reality the term has been defined to restrict evidence of efficacy to studies that have applied a RCT methodology. Accordingly, it is assumed that only this methodology will allow one to construct causal chains by which treatment can be seen to produce change. This is an overstatement of the value of RCTs as applied to psychotherapy research and an understatement of the role of other scientific methods to determine causal chains. However, while RCTs have provided clinical psychology with the assurance that psychotherapy works and is better than nothing, a reliance on this one methodology introduces limitations in clinical decision making ( Beutler & Forrester, 2014 ). In reality, the use of RCTs in psychotherapy have had to be modified to eliminate many of advantages of randomization. For example, in pharmacological research, neither the patient nor the clinician is aware of the treatment being offered. This kind of control is necessary to preserve the value of the randomization process. But, in psychotherapy, it is impossible for the principle participants to be blind to the treatment used. Likewise, in pharmacological research, each element of the treatment can be randomized, but in psychotherapy where the treatment is embodied within the persons giving and receiving it, the task of randomization is out of the question. Can one randomly assign therapists to different belief systems? Is culture a random event? Are preferences capable of being randomized across samples of patients and therapists? Yet all of these factors are embedded in the participants within psychotherapy and constitute aspects of the “treatment”. Clearly, not all—and maybe not even many--aspects of treatment can be randomly assigned to therapists and patients.

What is the methodology of STS?

The methodology of STS was developed by the application of Aptitude Treatment Interaction (ATI) research designs which center on identifying client variables that mediate (i.e., facilitate) and moderate (i.e., differentially facilitate) the effects of interventions ( Beutler and Clarkin, 1990, Beutler et al., 2000 ). The STS principles which are encompassed in identifying the obptimal “FIT” of treatment for a particular patient, is highly dependent upon having a reliable and valid measure of: a) the patient's standing on the critical dimensions that mediate or moderate treatment, b) the active ingredients of the treatment as it is applied, and 3) outcome. Achieving the measurement tools required, proceeded in four steps, each one of which was linked closely to the derivation of factors that constitute Optimal Fit and Meaningful Change.

What is STS in therapy?

The STS is a prototype of Integrative Therapy that is based on the identification and application of multiple empirically derived principles of change that reflect the role of mediators as well as the moderating effects that comprise therapy fit. This model is founded upon the argument that no particular treatment model works well universally, across all patients, and most interventions work well on some patients ( Beutler & Harwood, 2002 ). Logically, therefor, if the therapy environment and procedures can be tailored to each patient, higher improvement rates should be observed. However, it is also acknowledged that by defining psychotherapy broadly to include external moderators and mediators in addition to interventions, the parameters of influence, cannot be established if one relies solely on a single research methodology. RCT, widely considered the “gold standard” for validating psychotherapeutic influences accounts for a relatively small percentage of the change occurring among treated patients and has failed to illucidate clear differences in efficacy when RCT based therapies are compared to treatments as usual or even with one another ( Norcross and Lambert, 2006, Wampold, 2001 ). These failures alone underline the conclusion that other factors besides interventions and diagnosis alone inform optimal psychotherapy outcomes. Thus, multiple methods designed to reveal unveil effects are required to adequately test psychotherapy. We have reviewed three studies with diverse methodologies, all of which converge on similar results and offer these convergences as examples of how such studies can reveal causal chains.

What is the second step in the STS system?

The second step in the process of developing the STS system was to identify common and specific characteristics of treatment whose effects are moderated by patient qualities. This step included the initial efforts to identify and measure distinguishing and resulted in the development of profiles that distinguished among treatments and sub-types of Cognitive Therapy. In addition to treatment factors that emerged in the literature reviews (e.g., Beutler et al., 2000, Castonguay and Beutler, 2006 ), efforts to define characteristics of treatment that distinguish different models of treastment, we also sought to develop treatment profiles.

What are the four epochs of integrative psychotherapy?

These epochs began with the search for common healing factors (Epoch #1) and then progressed to the exploration of tailoring the use of patient specific procedures or “technical eclecticism” (Epoch #2). The third epoch saw the introduction of integration/eclecticism as a formal school ( Lazurus, 1967 ), and in turn, the differentiation of eclecticism and integrationism. With these changes, there was a return to “schools” (Epoch #4) with a focus on finding evidence based treatments that reliably produced change. It is during this epoch of change, that the field of integrative psychotherapy has achieved a degree of formality as a distinct approach, as interest in it has been shown to be durable and stable.

When did psychotherapy start?

Psychotherapy research has an extensive history that extends to the early 1900's. And through most of this history, eclectic and integrative approaches have been part of the scene. Even the early common factors approach to psychotherapy has been touted as an integrated approach to psychotherapy.

Is selecting the most appropriate treatment for each patient a nebulous and unreliable task?

However, selecting the most appropriate treatment for each patient can be a nebulous and unreliable task, varying by the clinician's biases and theoretical training and with uncertain or unmeasured results. There are different ways to identify and select a particular treatment course.

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Treatment

Clinical Trials

  • Explore Mayo Clinic studiestesting new treatments, interventions and tests as a means to prevent, detect, treat or manage this condition.
See more on mayoclinic.org

Lifestyle and Home Remedies

  • Many infectious diseases, such as colds, will resolve on their own. Drink plenty of fluids and get lots of rest.
See more on mayoclinic.org

Alternative Medicine

  • A number of products have claimed to help fend off common illnesses, such as the cold or flu. While some of these substances have appeared promising in early trials, follow-up studies may have had conflicting or inconclusive results. More research needs to be done. Some of the substances that have been studied for preventing or shortening the durat...
See more on mayoclinic.org

Preparing For Your Appointment

  • You'll probably first see your primary care doctor. Depending on the severity of your infection, as well as which of your organ systems is affected by the infection, your doctor may refer you to a specialist. For example, a dermatologist specializes in skin conditions, and a pulmonologist treats lung disorders.
See more on mayoclinic.org

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