Dual diagnosis was first identified in the 1980s among people with severe mental illness and coexisting substance abuse disorders. Today, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) uses the term co-occurring disorders (COD) to refer to the co-occurring disorders mentioned above. Dual diagnosis is a more general term for two or more conditions that occur in the same person at the same time, whether physical or mental. The presence of heart disease and diabetes could be considered a dual diagnosis.
Today, dual-diagnosis treatment is the term most commonly used to describe how people who have both mental illness and addiction are treated. An article published in Psychology Today states that “Compared to people who have a single disorder, those with a combination of disorders may experience more serious medical and mental health challenges and may also require longer treatment periods. The name is important for medical professionals dealing with these issues, as the terms they use can help both define the disorder and describe how it might be treated in the future. Dual diagnosis (also known as co-occurring disorder) is a term used when someone experiences mental illness and substance use disorder simultaneously.
Because one disorder may mask or intensify the symptoms of the other, it is often difficult to determine which one occurred first and may make it more difficult to diagnose. We have been offering licensed residential treatment for substance abuse, eating disorders and dual diagnosis in Tampa since 1987.People with mental illness use approximately 38% of all alcohol, 44% of all cocaine, and more than half of all opioid prescriptions in the U.S. For select people, it is a common problem that many people face. Although dual diagnosis treatment makes treatment more complex, even in severe situations, recovery is possible with the appropriate treatment program.
If you go to a medical professional and they find two different but the same problems, such as high blood pressure and heart disease or cancer and diabetes, it will be a dual diagnosis. This term is almost exclusively used to refer to a mental health problem that occurs as a result of or contributes to a drug or alcohol addiction. Dual diagnosis is when a person is diagnosed with two or more conditions that occur simultaneously. Compare that to co-occurring disorders, in which mental illness led a person to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol, or the devastating effects and brain damage that addiction entails led to the development of mental illness.
For the dual diagnosis, while the ailments discovered could be caused by substance abuse, they are two (or more) completely separate diagnoses. Co-occurring disorders are very similar to dual diagnosis, as it usually refers to two or more health problems that occur at the same time.
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