Spotting Severe Alcohol Withdrawal: What You Need to Know
We might be able to predict who can withdraw, but in patients we know are going to have withdrawal and we are admitting them to manage their withdrawal, it's hard to predict who's going to have a severe case and therefore it takes time to monitor, observe and trend the cewa scores and follow that alcohol withdrawal scale to really get a sense of what a person's course of their withdrawal is going to be.
Imagine you're an emergency room doctor faced with a patient in alcohol withdrawal. How can you tell if their condition will escalate to something severe? In this episode of 'Addiction in Emergency Medicine and Acute Care', Dr. Casey Grover dives into this very question. He reviews a pivotal paper from JAMA 2018 by Evan Wood and colleagues, which seeks to identify which hospitalized patients are at risk for severe alcohol withdrawal. Dr.
Grover breaks down the complex world of alcohol withdrawal, from its initial symptoms to the factors that predict its severity. You'll hear about the importance of alcohol withdrawal scales, which help medical professionals track symptoms and administer timely treatments. Without proper intervention, up to 30% of patients can develop delirium tremens, a potentially fatal condition.
This episode is packed with actionable insights, making it a must-listen for healthcare providers who want to improve their approach to treating substance use disorders in emergency settings.