Community Comments
Have something to say on the subject of Mental Illness? Share your opinions, personal experience and insight here. We want to hear YOUR VOICE!
Dear Ms Edwards,
As a person with several family members that have struggled with mental health issues all their lives in both Florida and other states, I am so glad to see WGCU focusing on this topic this week. I would encourage WGCU to keep the brightest spotlight possible focused on this topic in the future especially as other related issues in our nation grapples with the related issues.
I did want to pass along some feedback on the unfortunate passing reference to ECT as "ugly". Early forms of ECT were probably inappropriately used during the early days of psychiatry, before the advent of the current therapies. My heart goes out to those individuals that suffered with the daemons of an untreatable illness. However in today's world, the vast majority of patients will respond to conventional therapies however there are unfortunately a small population of severely clinically depressed patients that have failed multiple trials of medications and talk therapies. As the representative from David Lawrence mentioned, today's ECT treatment is far more refined and targeted than the sensationalized portraits in pop culture. The other very interesting thing about ECT is that no one really knows why it works, but the results can be life saving. As a therapy of last resort, where the risk/benefit evaluation has been carefully examined by qualified physicians, patients and family, ECT should not be feared any more than a high risk medical procedure. I should note that I am not a health care professional and simply expressing my thoughts based on my life experiences.
Thanks again for your insightful questions this week and always.
Jon Hart
Great program, thank you to Sierra, Ethan and Dana for giving their
personal accounts of struggles and recovery.
I would like to reiterate what I heard Diane Kratt saying about the needs
in Lee County and add my own comments as well.
There is an extreme tension between the medical model and recovery model
in treating mental illnesses. In my opinion, the medical model would
initiate a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation that will include looking
at medical conditions that may be occurring with the illness, causing
more symptoms that look like mental illness or actually making the
condition far worse. Then, an accurate diagnosis is needed.
Particularly in Bipolar Disorder, close medical follow up is needed to
decrease the likelihood of side effects with medication and to map out
the illness, attempting to decrease the likelihood of recurrence serious
enough to require crisis intervention. In conjunction with the
medication, educating the child and families is critical and the
beginning of the recovery process. This involves the child and family
learning how to manage the illness, as you would do with juvenile
diabetes. It is essential to provide hope and guidelines for effective
interventions. The psychiatrist alone usually cannot provide the scope
of treatment essential in the recovery process.
One of the main objectives in treating a child diagnosed with a mental
illness, is to promote the closest approximation of normative development
with respect to family relationships, academic achievement and
social/communication within the peer group.
In my opinion, there is no coordination of care in Lee County that
creates a reasonable treatment plan involving both the necessary
psychiatric treatment, psychological interventions, coupled with social
and academic strategies. For one example, there is no partial
hospitalization program (PHP) that would provide a place where treatment
and recovery might start. The hope would be to maintain a continuum of
care when children are discharged from a crisis unit or return to the
community after hospitalization outside of the county. There is no
funding for such intervention or a willingness for community entities to
partner with the school district to create such a program. In the long
run, however; the expense for starting this type of program would save
not only money that would be spent on crisis interventions but also save
children and families the additional burden of piecing the services
together the best they can.
There are many other examples of how the present services available lack
the ability and/or willingness on the part of the mental health center,
hospital system and the school district to create more comprehensive and
effective interventions for children and adolescents living in Lee County
with the challenges of accessing quality mental health services
Thank you for creating this wonderful program and for allowing me to
participate.
Marianne G Krouk, DO
Board Certified Adult, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
239-220-3543
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