5 Qualities of the Best Inpatient Rehab Centers

Once it comes time to get help for an out of control drug problem, ensuring the program you choose can meet your specific treatment needs becomes especially important. While not everyone may require inpatient rehab care, those who do should receive the best treatment possible.

As many forms of addiction can have a lasting impact on a person’s ability to maintain abstinence, it’s not uncommon for recovering addicts to require multiple rounds of drug treatment before actually overcoming an addiction problem, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. This is particularly the case for people struggling with long-time addictions.

It’s important for treatment to be tailored to your needs as an individual.

The best inpatient rehab centers have ample experience in working with severe and/or long-term addiction problems and have certain measures in place to ensure they’re providing the types of care most needed. Likewise, any treatment program worth its salt carries the necessary licensing and accreditation credentials, so the best inpatient rehab centers will most definitely follow state law requirements.

When deciding on an inpatient program, knowing what qualities to look for can help ensure you’re choosing between the best inpatient rehab centers available. Ultimately, the quality of care offered by any one program has a considerable bearing on a person’s overall success in the recovery process.

Here are five qualities of the best inpatient rehab centers to watch out for –

1. Comprehensive Evaluation Process

The best inpatient rehab centers conduct a comprehensive evaluation process in order to identify each person’s specific treatment needs. More oftentimes than not, those who stand to gain the most benefit from inpatient treatment struggle with a wide range of medical and psychological conditions on top of an addiction problem.

In order to diagnosis a person’s overall condition, the best inpatient rehab centers gather the following types of information during the initial evaluation –

• A person’s history of drug use
• Family history of drug use
• Existing medical conditions
• Psychological conditions caused by drug use
• Mental health history
• Family’s mental health history
• Presence or absence of a support system (friends, family)
• Motivation to get well

Inpatient service providers base a person’s treatment plan on information gathered during the evaluation process. By doing so, the best inpatient rehab centers provide recovering addicts with the best chance at a successful recovery.

2. Detoxification Treatment Included

Regardless of what type of drug treatment a person decides on, detoxification becomes a mandatory part of the recovery process. Since drugs and alcohol impair a person’s reasoning and decision-making abilities, there’s no sense going through drug treatment while under the influence.

While it only makes sense to include detox as part of the inpatient treatment process, not all inpatient programs do. The best inpatient rehab centers offer detoxification treatment to those who have yet to complete this essential first step.

Receiving detoxification treatment as part of the inpatient treatment process lessens the overall “shock” involved when moving through the treatment process. In effect, there’s more of a sense of continuity and structure when detox and inpatient treatment take place within the same program. Otherwise, a person must undergo detox treatment in a different program before actually entering an inpatient program.

3. Behavioral Treatment Interventions

Addiction takes root within the psychological aspects of a person’s daily life. Whereas a physical dependency on drugs affects the body, addiction has more to do with a person’s psychological dependence on a drug’s effects.

For this reason, the best inpatient rehab centers devote ample amounts of time to helping recovering addicts work through the psychological issues that keep them dependent on drugs. Psychological issues have to do with a person’s –

• Thinking patterns
• Belief systems
• Self identity
• Self perception in relation to the others

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, behavioral treatment interventions enable a person to identify destructive belief systems and replace them with healthy strategies for coping with everyday living. The best inpatient rehab centers offer a wide range of treatment interventions designed to help recovering addicts overcome addiction-based behaviors. Behavioral treatment interventions commonly used by the best inpatient rehab centers include –

• Motivation therapies
• Cognitive-behavioral therapies
• Individual psychotherapy
• Group therapy
• Drug education training
• Relapse prevention training

As inpatient treatment programs do require a person to live at the facility for the length of the program, these interventions offer a person the opportunity to understand what it takes to live a drug-free lifestyle.

4. Dual Diagnosis Treatment

Chronic and long-term drug use leaves the brain in a state of chemical imbalance that ultimately affects every area of a person’s life. In turn, these chemical imbalances create an environment where psychological disorders can easily develop.

As many people coming off long-time addictions tend to develop psychological disorders as a result of drug use, many who enter drug treatment actually battle two different conditions (also known as a dual diagnosis) rather than just addiction. The best inpatient rehab centers are well prepared to address the unique challenges people suffering from dual conditions face.

The unique challenges associated with dual diagnosis conditions stem from how the two conditions tend aggravate one another. Symptoms brought on by a psychological disorder, such as depression and anxiety aggravate a person’s ongoing cravings for drugs. Likewise, drug cravings only work to intensify the distress brought on by psychological disorder.

The best inpatient rehab centers provide an integrated treatment approach that’s designed to not only treat both conditions, but also coordinates treatment interventions in the process.

5. Support Group Model

Most all traditional drug treatment programs base their overall treatment approach on the support group model. With Alcoholics’ Anonymous being the very first recovery-based program, this treatment approach offers valuable therapeutic benefits that carry on long after a person completes drug treatment.

The best inpatient rehab centers place a high value on creating a support group-type atmosphere and environment. Within this type of setting, residents learn to –

• Ask for help when feeling overwhelmed
• Share experiences to help each other overcome addiction’s cravings
• Share coping strategies for living drug-free on a daily basis
• Hold one another accountable for their behavior
• Set goals for the future
• Have fun without the need for drugs

As support groups often become a central part of a recovering addicts life long after leaving the treatment program, the best inpatient rehab centers instill the importance of connecting with others through participation in support group meetings.