Biomedical subjects

B Longwell

Publications and source records attributed to B Longwell.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1979

Weight gain and edema on methadone maintenance therapy.

Methadone HCl is currently legally dispensed to approximately 80,000 heroin addicts in the United States. It is widely heralded as being virtually free from other than narcotic side effects. This report describes in detail three patients with massive fluid gain in a population of 420 addicts treated at the Hope Center methadone program in Tucson, Arizona. In no patient was there a prior history of edema, and an intensive search failed to reveal a cause for the swelling. Weight gain uniformly began 3 to 6 months after initiation of methadone or a sharp increase in the dosage, and in all three patients during periods when they sharply reduced or discontinued methadone, edema was resolved associated with a concomitant loss of weight.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

Side effects in methadone patients: a survey of self-reported complaints.

Fifty-one patients in a methadone maintenance program completed a questionnaire containing 38 complaints upon admission and after 3 and 9 months in treatment. The questionnaire contained a graded scale of five possible responses from "no problem" to "a very bad problem." Only three complaints at 3 months and five complaints at 9 months showed an increase in the percentage of clients reporting them as a problem compared to before methadone matinenance (BMM). When analyzed by summed mean, only one complaint at 3 months and two at 9 months showed an increase in severity on the graded scale compared to BMM. However, when each patient's responses were analyzed as to whether problems showed no change in severity, were improved, or increased in severity comparing BMM and after 9 months of methadone, 11 of 38 complaints showed a significant number of patients reporting them as more severe.

Adult↗

PubMed1978

Counselor effectiveness in a methadone maintenance program.

Counselor effectiveness for 253 heroin addicts in a methadone maintenance program was studied. The results of patient urinalysis for heroin use was chosen to assess counselor effectiveness. No significant differences in heroin use were found for the following groups of patients: 1. Those with multiple ex-addict (EA) counselors. 2. Those with multiple nonaddict (NA) counselors. 3. Patients with time periods with EA counselors followed by time periods with NA counselors, or vice versa. 4. Those with a single NA counselor. 5. Those with a single EA counselor. Patients with no counselor for one-third or more of each study period were found to have a significantly greater percent of urines positive for heroin.

Adult↗