Dr. Tonmoy Sharma, Sovereign Health's CEO, Discusses the Importance of Dual Diagnosis Assessment in New Television Interview

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Aug 05, 2016, 02:01 ET

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., Aug. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sovereign Health, a leading national provider of behavioral health treatment services, announces a new television interview featuring Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr. Tonmoy Sharma. The interview, broadcast live on the NBC affiliate KMIR's program "Desert Living" on Wednesday, August 3, features Dr. Sharma discussing the need for behavioral health treatment providers to conduct thorough assessments to identify the underlying dual diagnosis of mental health disorders when treating addiction.

Dr. Tonmoy Sharma, CEO of Sovereign Health

As Dr. Sharma notes in the interview, when treating patients, "Sovereign Health focuses on the underlying mental health issues that are often not addressed. It's the dual diagnosis component. You have to have a trained clinical staff to be able to do an assessment with patients and to be properly licensed. Through this comprehensive assessment, we regularly diagnose patients who have mental health disorders that have been previously missed" by other treatment providers.

Dr. Sharma, who gave an impactful presentation on cognitive deficits in addiction and mental health to a sold-out crowd in Costa Mesa, California in May, also addresses the effects of addiction on the brain. "One of the things that happens in addiction, which is often ignored, is that there's a decrease in cognitive function. Most people don't recognize that when substances are abused, whether it is drugs or alcohol, this causes a decrease in brain function. Addiction is a brain disease, so how is it that we don't assess the brain when someone comes in for addiction treatment? So I go back to the issue of assessment." Sovereign Health provides thorough assessments for patients, as well as customized treatment plans, to treat both the mental health disorders and addiction.

Sovereign Health operates nine treatment facilities in five states: California, Arizona, Florida, Texas and Utah. The facilities are fully licensed and have been awarded Gold Seal accreditation by the Joint Commission, the highest level of accreditation available in the behavioral health field. Desert Living is a 30-minute TV program broadcast from Palm Springs in the desert's Coachella Valley.

About Sovereign Health
Sovereign Health's mission is to provide a broad spectrum of high-quality behavioral health treatment services for adults and adolescents, including support services for family members. One factor that differentiates Sovereign from other treatment providers has been the company's ability to offer separate mental health and addiction or dual diagnosis treatment programs at its facilities. For more information, visit www.sovhealth.com.

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SOURCE Sovereign Health