Forced Treatment: Does it Help?

Go for it, I know we have many readers who oppose forced treatment.

  In "Opposing View: Forced Care Doesn't Work"  by Joseph A. Rogers in  USA Today discusses the usefulness of forced treatment.  While some would contend that people who are sick may become dangerous, lack insight, or be so sick they can't see themselves as ill, Rogers contends that by forcing people into treatment, they get turned off on the idea of getting care and that a better solution to the problem is to make psychiatric care something patients want to get.    Rogers writes:

Studies have shown that what works is not force but access to effective services. We don't need to change the laws to make it easier to lock people up; existing laws provide for that when warranted. Instead, we need to create and fund effective community-based mental health services that would make it attractive for people to come in and receive care, and that would support them in their recovery.


I don't know if better access to good care is the whole answer, but it's not a bad place to start.

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Recent posts on forced treatment:
Jan 9: Forced Treatment: Does it Help? ("make psychiatric care something patients want to get")
Jan 13: I'm Sorry ("I'm sorry that... the mental health system has failed [those who have died due to hiding from 'treatment']")
Jan 14: What We Need (list of 12 things readers are saying they need from the MH system)
Jan 14: Poll: Involuntary Commitment: Would you do it again? (a survey for those who have been committed in the past)

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Send a Message to Congress: Don't Cut Access to Healthcare for Medicare Patients

Medicare has been using a flawed formula to annually revise Medicare fees to all providers. The formula results in a larger and larger cut each year, which often gets temporarily "fixed" at the last minute. Due to the current dysfunctional Congress, the expectation is that it won't get fixed this time around, and so this year's cut -- 30%! -- will stay in place, resulting in many doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and other providers to drop Medicare.

What we need is for them to repeal this flawed "Sustainable Growth Rate" (SGR) formula, and replace it with something that makes sense.

Please CLICK HERE to take a few minutes to let your elected representatives know what you think about this.

Thank you.

Retriever Blog: Fad Diagnoses in Kiddie Psychiatry?

In response to Joy Bliss' post (Fad diagnosis in Psychiatry: Bipolar Disorder in children) on Maggie's Farm,  Retriever wrote about her experience with a child with an early and severe mental illness, and short-sighted attempts to reduce access to needed intensive mental health treatment for children.

I do think that diagnosing behavior problems in kids has been overextended, due more to loose interpretation of current diagnostic criteria rather than to overbroad criteria. But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

(Speaking of water, taking a break here from vacation to post an image from Southwest Harbor, Maine.)