ABSTRACT
This chapter describes trade name, classification, approved indications for psychological disorders, usual dosage and administration, relative contraindications, clinically significant drug interactions, adverse drug reactions and overdosage of Methadone. Methadone pharmacotherapy for the maintenance of opiate addiction requires patients to be enrolled in an opiate addiction maintenance program. Methadone pharmacotherapy is individualized according to each patient’s degree of opiate addiction and other factors. The methadone withdrawal syndrome, although qualitatively similar to that of morphine and other opiates, differs in several ways from these opiate withdrawal syndromes. Methadone is a synthetic opiate analgesic with multiple actions quantitatively similar to those of morphine. Concurrent methadone pharmacotherapy with other opiate analgesics, sedative-hypnotics, and other drugs that produce CNS depression may result in additive CNS depression. Methadone has a low incidence of ADRs when compared to morphine and produces less euphoria than heroin. Signs and symptoms of methadone overdosage are similar to those observed with morphine overdosage.
