Methadone, technology and outcomes

~ Jason Schwartz

Substance Matters has a post about the use of new technologies in methadone maintenance.

Patients who use a web-based intervention (TES) instead of half of their traditional counseling did better than those with traditional counseling as part of their methadone treatment.

It provokes important questions about the usefulness of new technologies and how they might be used to improve treatment outcomes.

However, what struck me was this graph:

Web based behavioral treatment for substance use disorders as a partial replacement of standard methadone maintenance treatment

This was a twelve month study. This means that subjects who got TES and did better than subjects recieving traditional methadone used opiates (other than methadone) 25 weeks of the year.

That’s a successful intervention?

 

Published by Jason Schwartz

I have been an addiction professional and social worker since 1994. I started blogging in 2005 as the Clinical Director at Dawn Farm. I no longer work at Dawn Farm and am now the Director of Behavioral Medicine at a community hospital, and a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University’s School of Social Work. Views expressed here are my own. Keep in mind that the field, the contexts in which the field operates, and my views have changed over time.

3 thoughts on “Methadone, technology and outcomes”

  2. You would have to look hard in UK to find any group of people on Methadone who also receive counselling.

  3. At a time like this I am reminded of a little saying I have heard a few times in the rooms, “Progress, not Perfection”. Every day that people who do not want to use heroin do not use heroin is a good day. I do not think counselors will ever be replaced completely by technology as there is so much more that a healthy, therapeutic relationship can teach everyone involved.

Comments are closed.