Nurses should recognize clinical
features of alcohol withdrawal in
any patient admitted to the hospital.
Timely sedation will prevent the
onset of convulsion or progression
to delirium tremens. The most effective
regimen is to control the agitation,
sweating, and tremor with
symptom-triggered dosing (Harrison
& Daly, 2006). With this method,
the need for medication is signaled
by signs and symptoms in the
patient withdrawing from alcohol
(Bayard et al., 2004). In a doubleblind,
controlled trial, symptom-triggered
therapy proved superior to
fixed-dose sedative scheduling to
manage alcohol withdrawal. Persons
receiving symptom-triggered therapy
used less benzodiazepines and
had decreased duration of treatment