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Drug abuse and addiction are common in clinical practice. Often they interfere with patient treatment or require an alternative approach. Drug Abuse and Addiction in Medical Illness: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment is a major contribution to the literature, a gold standard title offering a comprehensive range of topics for those who care for patients with addiction, conduct research in this area, or simply have an interest in the field. Offering state-of-the-art information for all those working with drug abusing or addicted patients, or for those interested in this topic from other research perspectives, the volume is a first of its kind book -- rich, comprehensive, yet focused, addressing the needs of the very active theoretical, basic, and clinical research in the field. Comprised of 46 chapters organized in four sections and developed by the leading international experts, Drug Abuse and Addiction in Medical Illness: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment covers virtually every core, as well as contemporary, topic on addiction, from the established theories to the most modern research and development in the field. Enhancing the educational value of the volume, every chapter includes an abstract and two boxes summarizing learning objectives and directions for future research. Drug Abuse and Addiction in Medical Illness: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment discusses the topic in a authoritative, systematic manner and is an indispensable reference for all clinicians and researchers interested in this rapidly changing field.

Had you looked up “quality of life” (QOL) in Index Medicus premature deaths. Procedures ranging from joint replacement priorto1975,yoursearchwouldhavebeenfruitless. Although and coronary bypass surgery to treatments for arthritis and thetermwasmostlikely?rstintroducedbyKarnofskyin1949 sleep disturbances do little to increase longevity; rather, they within the realm of chemotherapy for cancer patients (1), it make it easier for the person to function in his or her daily was not used as a key word in Index Medicus for another 26 life. A cynical perspective would say that clinicians are now interested in QOL to justify their existence, as interventions years. Since that time, there has been an exponential growth in such as hip replacement cannot be rationalized on the basis the number of articles about QOL. Figure 1 shows the number of preserving lives. However, as people live longer, they do of unique articles cited each year in Medline and PsycInfo: 7 in fact become more susceptible to disorders and conditions in 1970, 331 in 1980, not quite 1800 in 1990, slightly over that interfere with activities of daily living and consequently 6000 in 2000, and nearly 11,000 in 2005. Once the domain of decrease their QOL. mainly medicine and psychology, QOL has found its way into A second factor is the realization that QOL is not syno- every aspect of health care, including physiotherapy, oc- mous with the absence of symptoms: patients with serious pational therapy, social work, nursing, and others.