Patient Assessment Paper

Introduction
This paper will show how assessment is a core part of the client’s treatment. It will show how assessment is done at the beginning of the treatment process but, will allow you to see that assessment is a continuing process. It results from a combination of focused interviews, testing, and record reviews. Assessments give the social worker a framework of reference to understand the strengths, weaknesses, problems, and needs of the client for the development of the treatment plan. It provides the social worker with a theory-based framework for generating hypotheses about the client’s experience and behaviors, which in turn helps prepare the basis for a specific treatment intervention. This paper will discuss the assessment tools

Our main assessment tool is the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) it is a widely used structured interview that is designed to provide important information about what might contribute to a client’s alcohol or drug problem. The instrument assess seven dimensions that typically are of concern in addiction: (1) medical status, (2) education/employment status/support status, (3) drug/alcohol use, (4) legal status, (5) family history, (6) family/social relationships, and (7) psychiatric status. The ASI was the first standardized assessment tool of its kind to measure the multiple dimensions of substance abuse. The ASI is conducted in an interview format by clinicians worldwide. It has been used as an assessment tool by state agencies and treatment providers and has been translated into 18 languages (McLellan, Luborsky & Woody,

In addition to yielding a total score (ranging from 0 to 120), the TSC-40 has six subscales: Anxiety, Depression, Dissociation, Sexual Abuse Trauma Index, Sexual Problems, and Sleep Disturbances (Elliot, D & Briere, J., 1992).
Then we have the ASAM dimensions of care that we have to assess each client for placement. ASAM's criteria, formerly known as the ASAM patient placement criteria, is the result of a collaboration that began in the 1980s to define one national set of criteria for providing outcome oriented and results based care in the treatment of addiction. Today the criteria have become the most widely used and comprehensive set of guidelines for placement, continued stay and transfer/discharge of patients with addiction and co-occurring conditions. ASAM's criteria are required in over 30 states.
The ASAM criterion is useful to patients, treatment providers, managed care providers, and other stakeholders and professionals. The criteria have become the most widely used and comprehensive set of guidelines for assessment, service planning, placement, continued stay and transfer/discharge of patients with addiction and co-occurring