[Addiction in psychiatric ambulatory service].

Addictive disorders are of high prevalence and often associated with other psychiatric and somatic diseases. Diagnostic procedures must be targeted to this topic and should also cover the exclusion of comorbidities, such as OCD, psychotic, mood disorders and ADHD. Severe cases, often complicated by multiple dependencies of substances and advanced stages of the disease can require the involvement of a variety of caregivers, who are requested to sufficiently cooperate and interact to guarantee an optimal outcome of treatment. The caregivers can be additionally confronted with problems such as intoxications, psychosocial and somatic complications, which can demand legal protective measures. The responsible caregivers should highly regard the task of distinguishing between therapeutic and official magisterial assignments, including compulsory treatment. In geriatric patients addictive disorders become even more frequent. Diagnostically often overlooked and trivialized they are of major interest, as these problems can lead to complications including falls with injuries, namely seen in patients with low dose dependency of sedatives. Therefore the prescription of these drugs should be very carefully evaluated.