61–70 of 209 posts
I don't think there's a policy solution for this.
> Six weeks into my legislative career, I was the legislature’s reluctant new expert on mental health.
After six weeks, he was not an expert. In nearly all cases, our legislators are not experts in any of the things which they are legislating, yet that never stops them from forming strong opinions and trying to "reform" or "fix" things. On HN, we see this frequently with Internet and technology legislation, but this article shows it's a problem with other areas, too.
It's really sad that this isn't a priority in the United States. Somehow we have so little money for the government to pay for anything, that any possible solutions are either underfunded or written off completely. Overloaded case workers, run-down facilities, lack of facilities, lack of integrated programs, are just a few of the consequences. It's an odd sort of poverty where all sorts of gadgets and innovations are…
> If I were a legislator today, I’d mandate — and provide funding to ensure — that every teacher receive training in recognizing symptoms of mental illnesses.
but teachers aren't psychiatrists or clinical psychologists and can't really be expected to be.
I was recently watching a program talking about the somewhat controversial theory that schizophrenia (and other mental disorders) are either parasitic in origin or that parasites may simply contribute [1] [2].
The culprit in this case being toxoplasmosis. There's been research to show that there is correlation between the incidence of schizophrenia and the domestication of cats.
This kinda reminds me of how peptic ulcers were once thought to be caused by stress until they were found to caused by a virus [3].
At the same time the elimination of parasites is arguably related to the rise of autoimmune diseases in the developed world (the so-called "hygine hypothesis" [4]). For example, hookworms may combat asthma and other allergies [5].,
I wonder if the coming century will be a revolution in mental health as parasties, viruses and bacteria (or even the lack thereof) may be far more immportant than currently realized, possibly even causal in many cases.
[1]: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090311085151.ht...
[2]: http://www.stanleyresearch.org/dnn/LaboratoryofDevelopmental...
[3]: http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/peptic-ulcer...
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
[5]: http://www.gizmag.com/hookworms-prevent-asthma-allergies/129...
It seems inevitable that euthanizing a long neglected mental health system could lead to further difficulty amongst the mentally ill and the people who have to live around them and/or love them. It must seem shocking that any bad outcomes could ever come out of "reforms."
As a person who was alive in the US when all of the crazies were thrown out into the street without a net in preparation for their future jail/homeless/jail/homeless/dead therapeutic cycle, I'd like to add that more than this guy's son was screwed by Reagan.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
His son might not have been contributing, but having him homeless and bouncing in and out of jails is more expensive to society than appropriate institutional support. Furthermore one of the stated issues is his unwillingness to take antipsychotic medication, and one of the characteristic traits is that in a structured jail environment, where he's presumably receiving those medications, he is able to function well. T…
Anti-psychotic medication isn't like taking Tylenol. It can completely change a person's personality, and people have likened it to living in a fog.
This is a tough story of a state legislator who became an adoptive father finding out that policies that he thought were humane reforms didn't end up helping people in this generation like his adoptive son. Some of my perspective on these issues comes from knowing Irving Gottesman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Gottesman who was credited as the main adviser on schizophrenia relied on by the author of the book A…
We do know that young people whose family history suggests genetic risk for major mental illness (which might not be known for a particular adopted child) are playing with fire if they take schedule I drugs without medical supervision. That marijuana is classified as a "schedule I drug" is, itself, obscene and a result of politics, not science. Therefore, the rest of your suggestion regarding them "playing with fire"…
See: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2005559-2,00....
What a timely article. Just today received a call from the school that my grade 3 son had thrown a girl to the ground threatening her. This was the second incident in a week. A team of councilors and mental health workers were called in as an emergency response team. The similarities between the child in the article and my son are startling and scary. Although we are still at the beginning of our story, I do believe…
I'd go easy on that counselling and do my best to figure out first what actually happened . It would not be the first time that the visible aggressor was in fact the victim of a long drawn out teasing campaign by a group of bullies, and girls can be bullies just as easy as boys. One of the best bits of fun seems to be to goad someone until they snap and then let them take the blame for it all. Been there, done that,…
That being said, I have seen the kids first hand pushing his buttons on the school yard. There are so easy to push it's hard for them to resist. We are working with both the school and some mental health workers to make the situation more livable for all parties. I appreciate your concern, and I do understand that play-yard aggression is often mis-construed. That is most definitely part of this situation.
This says so much about what's broken in our legislative system: > Six weeks into my legislative career, I was the legislature’s reluctant new expert on mental health. After six weeks, he was not an expert. In nearly all cases, our legislators are not experts in any of the things which they are legislating, yet that never stops them from forming strong opinions and trying to "reform" or "fix" things. On HN, we see th…
You can blame the schools for misdiagnosing ADHD, and you can blame them for a poor IEP, but you can't blame them for a child not having a normal life due to one of the most tragic diseases known to man. Schizophrenia is not the kind of disease you can treat with an IEP, and it sounds like the author's son fell out of the system from a very young age. Trying to blame anything but genetics and development for his son'…
In many less developed countries people with schizophrenia have better outcomes. It's only in the US where the condition is usually debilitating for life, because:
A) The US healthcare system relies on longterm use of anti-psychotic medication as the main form of treatment, which tends to lead to worse outcomes in the long run.
B) Family relationships in the US are generally not conducive to properly recovering from schizophrenia.
In other countries the people aren't completely normally, but they're also generally not completely unable to hold a job for their entire lives like in the US.