Day 1 :
Keynote Forum
Scott Stevens
Alcohologist.com, USA
Keynote: Look what dragged the cat in: The rise of the opioid crisis
Time : 11:20-12:20
Biography:
Scott Stevens is a Journalist, posting regularly on health and alcohol issues for online news services and is a Founding Influencer at the world's largest medical portal, HealthTap. He blends intensive evidence-based research, with journalistic objectivity, blunt personal dialogue and no-nonsense business perspective in his four award-winning health and addiction books.
Abstract:
The decade of the 2010's shelled hospitals and first responders with an explosion of opioid-related illness, injury and death. Preventable drug overdoses tallied 54,793 lives lost in 2016-an increase of 391% since 1999. Accidental drug overdose deaths increased 327% over the same period. The majority of OD deaths (38,000) involve opioids. The drug category most frequently involved in opioid overdoses and growing at the fastest pace includes Fentanyl, Fentanyl analogs and Tramadol. The Fentanyl category of opioids accounted for nearly half of opioid-related deaths. The abuse of drugs, regardless of classification, begins with the permissiveness granted the world's most lethal drug and third-leading cause of all preventable deaths: Alcohol. It's a straight line. Nearly every non-Muslim civilization on this rock has embraced alcohol. As a result, ours is largely a numbing planet, especially in the sedation-happy Americas. This is the root. This is the seed of the opium trade that has gone un stemmed since prehistory. There is legit medical use for opium derivatives: What has driven growth is demand-not by the sick but by people who cannot get the mind alteration they desire through alcohol use alone. Alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike drink the first drink for the same reason: To relieve a stress. In the US, which has a laissez faire agenda towards alcohol since its prohibition failure, the culture embraces a drinking lifestyle. Western culture normalizes alcohol use. In other words, we normalize drug use. What you ignore, you permit. What you permit, you condone. Opioid abuse happens when a person can't get where they want to get with alcohol. The opioid crisis wasn't created by doctors overprescribing, manufacturers wooing doctors, China shipping heroin and cheaper Fentanyl via cartels and postal mail. Drinking, especially binge drinking is the pandemic that dragged in the opioid epidemic. Culture condones the buzz, the sedation. We created this monster on our own.
Keynote Forum
Jerome Ndolesha
Dual Diagnosis Specialist, UK
Keynote: An exploratory qualitative research on the perceptions of dual diagnosis among the bangladeshi community in the london borough of tower hamlets
Time : 10:00-11:00
Biography:
Jerome Ndolesha has completed his MSc in Dual Diagnosis and is a Specialist Graduate from the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley and Middlesex University, London. He was the President of the International Missionary Institute of London (2002-2003). He is currently enrolled on an MA in Law at the University of Law (London Bloomsbury) and pursuing his PhD in African Politics. He has a great passion renewable energy, mining and general construction.
Abstract:
Confusingly, dual diagnosis describes innumerable physical, psychological/developmental co-morbidity. However, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence defines the phenomenon as the coexistence of severe mental illness and licit/illicit psychoactive substance misuse, embracing patients who meet the criteria of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition (2000) (DSM-IV) and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision (2016) (ICD-10). Nevertheless, since dual diagnosis is not a diagnosis in itself, inconsistent drug/alcohol misuse operational definitions and diagnostic classifications exist within the DSM-IV (and DSM-V) and the ICD-10. Such uncertainties contribute to making dual diagnosis a significant global clinical problem, often closely associated with increased risk of socio-economic exclusion, serious physical illness, self-harm, frequent re-hospitalization, poor treatment outcomes suicide/premature death, staff difficulties and management problems. Not only is ethnicity closely associated with dual diagnosis it also complicates the latter even more, due to different negative perceptions, meanings and values attributed to both mental health illness and substance misuse. Often manifested in poor access to services, evidence suggests that this situation is challenging and alarmingly complicates patients’ care pathways. Despite this phenomenon's wide recognition as a critical health concern, services are insufficiently prepared to support patients from ethnic minorities. This research provides an opportunity to explore dual diagnosis from ethnicity's perspective, with special reference to the Bangladeshi community of the London borough of tower hamlets, as a case study. Although the borough is predominantly Bangladeshi, there is a dearth in research exploring dual diagnosis from a Bengali perspective. However, in many comparative studies, South Asian communities are erroneously classed as a homogeneous group, hence creating challenges in ascertaining the level of associated problems, whereas services have constantly struggled to meet the needs of this population. This study will offer an opportunity to look at barriers and constraints to dual diagnosis accessing services and how they could be overcome.