There is no consistency or communication between psychiatric (especially government) care teams/practitioners/facilities, which is essential to successful treatment outcomes.
None. We have an idea for an app to coordinate, but I will post a separate policy submission idea for that.
Also, studies show that abruptly stopping or changing medications without necessary titration protocol (tapering, taking into careful consideration medications that affect the blood brain barrier). This lack of titration can cause a rebound withdrawal psychosis and is often mismanaged due to lack of knowledge (see: www.outro.com and www.markhorowitz.org, and other experts) - especially if a patient repeatedly goes into crisis due to the dangerous and common practice of willy-nilly abruptly stopping/starting of psych meds by most facilities. They create their own crisis situations because they are damaging brains with this outdated standard of care. These are dependent drugs. There should be class action lawsuit for the millions of injured patients this happens to, daily, including the elderly. Furthermore, the subjective nature of the current medical model of diagnosis and treatment is problematic, due to different psychiatrists diagnosing the same patient with a variety of different conditions. Most of the chronic, criminalized patients rely on wherever they get taken in to for treatment. It’s an abject failure, causing immense harm and death. Permanent brain damage can and does occur, due to having no system set up to support consistency between facilities and medical professionals that may treat the same patient. Complex issues that may need legal assistance.
Investigating and integrating the newest holistic therapeutic protocols is sorely needed, with individualized care that spectrum disorders like Schizophrenia warrant, targeted to the individual patient’s DNA and lived experiences, making sure all medical teams have and can access consistent and appropriate information unique to each patient. Anything less carries the probability of injury and/or psychotic crisis events, due to well-intentioned doctors forcing psychiatric medications a patient’s body may not be able to metabolize, or that are combined but contraindicated.
Especially egregious is the use of Intramuscular (IM) medication/drug injections of first-generation and other neuroleptic tranquilizers as a form of chemical restraint. Consideration of serious adverse side effects must be discussed with patient, Treatment Advocates and family members who could provide support. New policy to develop more careful treatment options to prevent or lessen traumatic experiences at all facilities, while making sure patient and staff safety and overall de-escalation are optimized. Plus, if chemical restraint/forced injections do continue, make sure appropriate trauma therapy is administered to help patients recover from every occurrence, which is psychologically damaging. We just aren’t caring enough, and that has to change.
The phrase commonly attributed to the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm,” has been modernly mainstreamed. Medical schools may not require it, but the meaning and intention continue to be strongly valued by the public and patients. Nonetheless, this phrase is surely not adhered to when, for example, physicians refuse to utilize vital scientific tests that can help prevent potential harm, especially when the patient, family, or legal surrogates specifically request and even offer to pay for such tests. In our family member’s life, the irrefutable results of a credentialed pharmacogenomic DNA mouth swab (like GeneSight) that has undergone FDA clinical trials, validated years of our loved one asserting how he could not tolerate certain medications. Still, unless a lawyer intervenes, doctors sometimes refuse to abide by patient/family/ advocate wishes to administer this protective test, which was requested due to years of medications not “curing” the patient. Quite the contrary; forced medications over thirty (34) years caused permanent harm and metabolic dysfunction. In summary, the individualized, evidentiary pharmacogenomic results of this test proved the patient’s DNA cannot metabolize most of the medications forced by mental health courts (whether by injection or orally), countless times. This is a protective tool and useful treatment guide.
Our family member’s lengthy medications list is staggering, over 50 legal pages long. This patient’s pleadings were ignored for decades when he stated that he cannot tolerate certain medications. He would run from them, they hurt him so badly, causing akathisia, hyperthermia, priapism, etc. These specific pharmacogenomic drug results are consistent with what this patient continually said over the years. He was proved right. Each patient and their legal advocates need to be respected and listened to. Laws must be obeyed. Generally, psychiatrists, public defenders, and judges can learn from the facts of this family members records, but they don’t seem interested. They do not listen. We feel invisible.
There are millions of patients just like him, suffering tremendously in the name of treatment.
Psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel G. Amen, MD of Amen Clinics has a database of over 150,000 functional brain scans. In this TEDx talk. Dr. Amen mentions that psychiatrists are the only doctors that never look at the organ they are treating. Dr. Amen says they were told, “Clinical psychiatrists should not be doing scans. Scans are only for research.” He also says, if you "give psychiatric medications to the wrong person you can precipitate the disaster” and "behavior is an expression of the problem, not the problem itself.”
As well, standard of care protocol should determine if a person has any type of traumatic brain injury (TBI), or other neurological issue in the brain causing psychotic symptoms. The subjective and inconsistent diagnosing of mental patients would be more precisely served by ascertaining brain scans in a process of elimination. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) states, “all attempts at showing that psychiatric disorders cause brain damage that can be seen on brain scans have failed. This research area is intensely flawed and very often, the researchers have not even considered the possibility that any brain changes they observe could have been caused by the psychiatric drugs their patients have taken for years. In contrast, it has been shown in many reliable studies - most clearly for neuroleptic drugs - that psychiatric drugs can cause permanent brain damage.”
Study of the brain, the organ of the mind, needs much more attention and funding.
Front-line pharmacological interventions should be the last resort, instead of the go-to.
Family is harmed as well, by the current system. We were told to stop “interfering" but we’ve been right every step of the way, and we had LEGAL RIGHT to be involved. The facilities were the ones breaking the laws.
Family involvement is not common, is generally unwelcomed and mostly disrespected. Shameful insults were spoken directly to knowledgeable and caring family members. This is the opposite of a constructive, integrative path to full healing. Dialogue with family support is key to improvement and recovery. Other countries with systems having positive results are to be modeled. These are broad and tragic lived experience stories, and no one should experience these tragedies in this, the greatest country in the world! Needed is proper quality legal assistance to help all those suffering with SMI, due to an overtaxed, exhausted system that doesn’t have time, money or the will to find real solutions and do the right thing. It takes legal power to overcome long-set mentalities. We have ideas and would love to expand/discuss further and share records. Thanks.