Drug rehab- relieve from temptations by attending programs in rehab centers

Drug rehab

Let's face it: maps make scientists drool. And increasingly easy-to-use yet complex maps of anything from the spread of diseases to cloud formations kept all the geo geeks giddy at the Association of American Geographers' annual meeting in D.C. last week. One of those maps could reveal new clues about when and where drug addicts are at their most (and least) vulnerable. Drug rehab centers help them.

When it comes to drug addiction, the tendency is to think in terms of a disease of the brain, says National Institute on Drug Abuse researcher David Epstein, whose presentation at the annual meeting included a map tracking the whereabouts of two heroin addicts in Baltimore over several months. Drug rehab is the process of recovery

But what if addiction is also an environmental disease, the prevention of which requires avoiding mapped hot spots of temptation? As Epstein sees it, "One of the major cognitive theories of relapse involves seemingly irrelevant decisions--like a recovering alcoholic takes the scenic route, which happens to include a bar, and they relapse. You can have an intervention that on-the-spot warns people about where they are going based on data about neighborhoods in general and their behavior specifically."

Epstein and colleagues are now studying 25 heroin addicts, all found via a methadone treatment research clinic and involved in "methadone maintenance." Epstein says they all participate in studies that can last up to nine months, and sign consent forms from the start. Through this clinic, he hopes to track 150 Baltimore addicts in the coming months.

So how does his team get people willing to be followed as they engage in illicit behavior? "We explain in the consent form some rationale behind the study, with a sentence that the purpose of the GPS is not to keep an eye on you but to study how neighborhoods affect behavior," Epstein says. "People seem to get that."

Each patient is given a GPS unit the size of a thick domino that tracks motion each time a distance of 25 meters is covered, or clocks in the same location point every 25 minutes when each patient is still.
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