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Clonazepam as Agonist Substitution Treatment for Benzodiazepine Dependence: A Case Report

Nowadays, the misuse of benzodiazepines (BZDs) is a cause for a serious concern among pharmacologically inexperienced patients, whether treated or untreated, that could lead to significant complications, including tolerance, dependence, and addiction. We present a case report in which an Italian pat...

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Autores principales: Maremmani, Angelo Giovanni Icro, Rovai, Luca, Rugani, Fabio, Bacciardi, Silvia, Pacini, Matteo, Dell'Osso, Liliana, Maremmani, Icro
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3570932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23424702
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/367594
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author Maremmani, Angelo Giovanni Icro
Rovai, Luca
Rugani, Fabio
Bacciardi, Silvia
Pacini, Matteo
Dell'Osso, Liliana
Maremmani, Icro
author_facet Maremmani, Angelo Giovanni Icro
Rovai, Luca
Rugani, Fabio
Bacciardi, Silvia
Pacini, Matteo
Dell'Osso, Liliana
Maremmani, Icro
author_sort Maremmani, Angelo Giovanni Icro
collection PubMed
description Nowadays, the misuse of benzodiazepines (BZDs) is a cause for a serious concern among pharmacologically inexperienced patients, whether treated or untreated, that could lead to significant complications, including tolerance, dependence, and addiction. We present a case report in which an Italian patient affected by anxiety disorder and treated with BZDs presented a severe case of dependence on BZDs. We treated him according to an agonist substitution approach, switching from the abused BZD to a slow-onset, long-acting, high potency agonist (clonazepam), and looking at the methadone treatment model as paradigm. We decided to use clonazepam for its pharmacokinetic properties. The advantage of choosing a slow-onset, long-lasting BZD for the treatment of our patient was that it led us to a remarkable improvement in the clinical situation, including the cessation of craving, absence of withdrawal symptoms, reduced anxiety, improvements in social functioning, and a better cognition level.
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spelling pubmed-35709322013-02-19 Clonazepam as Agonist Substitution Treatment for Benzodiazepine Dependence: A Case Report Maremmani, Angelo Giovanni Icro Rovai, Luca Rugani, Fabio Bacciardi, Silvia Pacini, Matteo Dell'Osso, Liliana Maremmani, Icro Case Rep Psychiatry Case Report Nowadays, the misuse of benzodiazepines (BZDs) is a cause for a serious concern among pharmacologically inexperienced patients, whether treated or untreated, that could lead to significant complications, including tolerance, dependence, and addiction. We present a case report in which an Italian patient affected by anxiety disorder and treated with BZDs presented a severe case of dependence on BZDs. We treated him according to an agonist substitution approach, switching from the abused BZD to a slow-onset, long-acting, high potency agonist (clonazepam), and looking at the methadone treatment model as paradigm. We decided to use clonazepam for its pharmacokinetic properties. The advantage of choosing a slow-onset, long-lasting BZD for the treatment of our patient was that it led us to a remarkable improvement in the clinical situation, including the cessation of craving, absence of withdrawal symptoms, reduced anxiety, improvements in social functioning, and a better cognition level. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2013 2013-01-30 /pmc/articles/PMC3570932/ /pubmed/23424702 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/367594 Text en Copyright © 2013 Angelo Giovanni Icro Maremmani et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Case Report
Maremmani, Angelo Giovanni Icro
Rovai, Luca
Rugani, Fabio
Bacciardi, Silvia
Pacini, Matteo
Dell'Osso, Liliana
Maremmani, Icro
Clonazepam as Agonist Substitution Treatment for Benzodiazepine Dependence: A Case Report
title Clonazepam as Agonist Substitution Treatment for Benzodiazepine Dependence: A Case Report
title_full Clonazepam as Agonist Substitution Treatment for Benzodiazepine Dependence: A Case Report
title_fullStr Clonazepam as Agonist Substitution Treatment for Benzodiazepine Dependence: A Case Report
title_full_unstemmed Clonazepam as Agonist Substitution Treatment for Benzodiazepine Dependence: A Case Report
title_short Clonazepam as Agonist Substitution Treatment for Benzodiazepine Dependence: A Case Report
title_sort clonazepam as agonist substitution treatment for benzodiazepine dependence: a case report
topic Case Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3570932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23424702
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/367594
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