Should the benzodiazepines continue to be used

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Reference no: EM133537511

Assignment:

Benzodiazepine and Mental Health

Should the benzodiazepines continue to be used?

In the time since they were introduced, a growing body of evidence suggests that benzodiazepines have serious side effects. Some patients taking a benzodiazepine have experienced periods of irritability, rage, or outright aggression (Breggin, 2008). Further, the duration of action of some benzodiazepines such as alprazolam is so short that there is a danger that the patient will start the benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome (BWS) before he or she is scheduled to take the next dose. Since anxiety is one of the cardinal symptoms of the BWS, the anxiety that the person experiences when in a state of withdrawal from a short-acting benzodiazepine is resolved with the next dose. This raises the question of whether the patient is experiencing real anxiety, which certainly should be treated, or withdrawal-related anxiety.

Questions

1. How do you tell the difference between one form of anxiety and the other?

2. Many patients (and physicians) assume that anxiety is anxiety, and that anxiety should be controlled by medications. However, under what circumstances might anxiety be beneficial? Considering the above information, what might some of the negative consequences be for a patient who was prescribed a benzodiazepine?

3. Imagine a patient who had been taking a prescribed benzodiazepine for so long that she became tolerant to its effects and would enter the BWS if she stopped taking the medication. How is her experience different from that of the person who has misused a benzodiazepine for so long that to try to stop taking the drug would mean that entering the BWS? Why? Would you have different reactions to individuals in each of these two situations?

4. Is there a difference between a compound labeled "habit forming" and one labeled "addictive?" Under what circumstances might these labels be used, and who might want to differentiate between them? Do compounds labeled as "non-habit forming" really mean that there is no potential to form a psychological or physiological habit?

Reference no: EM133537511

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