Stopping Schizophrenia in its Tracks (NAMI Blog Repost)

Stopping Schizophrenia in Its Tracks By Darcy Gruttadaro, Director, NAMI Child and Adolescent Action Center For those experiencing psychosis, early identification and intervention matter, a huge amount. It lessens the long-term severity and often prevents psychosis from worsening. An effective early identification and intervention program should include the following coordinated array of services and supports: Supported education and employment. Cognitive behavioral therapy. Peer support. Family support and education. Case management. Community outreach. Low dose antipsychotic medication. These services work so well because they are offered together to provide the skills and support that youth and young adults need to get better. They also take into account the context of a young person’s life and the key role that peers and families play in recovery. FEP programs reduce costly hospitalizations and put youth and young adults with psychosis on an early path to recovery. When you fund upstream interventions, you can prevent the tragedies associated with untreated mental illness: school failure, unemployment, hospitalizations, homelessness, jail and suicide. Investing in effective programs that intervene early produces far better outcomes for individuals, families and communities. There are effective strategies available, so why aren’t more young people getting help? One of the main reasons is that these services and supports are simply not available in communities. However, there has been progress made recently that to help ensure the availability of these resources in more towns and cities across the U.S. One significant event is that Congress has now required states to use 5 percent of their Mental Health Block Grant for First Episode Psychosis (FEP) programs. This means that states are obligated to set aside a certain amount of their federal funding to address the importance of early intervention. How Is NAMI Helping We recognize the urgency in expanding these programs. Our advocacy work and involvement in these programs is happening at all levels of the organization. NAMI NYC Metro is partnering with OnTrackNY, an FEP program, in providing support groups and peer support for youth and young adults experiencing early psychosis. NAMI Connecticut is offering peer-run young adult support groups located close to FEP programs to make it easy for young adults to join. NAMI Minnesota has partnered with an FEP program and is creating education and support programs for youth experiencing early psychosis and their families. Oregon was an early adopter of these services and supports, having witnessed the success of these programs in Australia. Tamara Sale, the director of the Early Assessment and Support Alliance (EASA) in Oregon and a former long-time NAMI Oregon board member, shared how their program works successfully with youth and young adults experiencing early psychosis. The EASA program recognizes that it can be difficult to engage youth and young adults experiencing early psychosis, so it uses strategic community approaches that meet young people where they are with messages of hope and relevance to their lives. They are flexible and persistent, even with youth and young adults that seem entirely uninterested in mental health care. What You Can Do FEP programs exist in a handful of communities and more must be done to spread these programs across the country. Here is how you can make sure that happens. Learn more about FEP programs. Understand why these programs are pivotal in creating better outcomes. Email or Tweet your Congressional members to thank them and to ask for their continued support of FEP programs. Connect with your NAMI Affiliate in advocating at the state and federal levels for FEP programs so that youth and young adults experiencing early psychosis can access effective services and supports. We can and must change the trajectory of people’s lives by intervening early with recovery-oriented and effective services. We simply cannot afford to wait.

A prolonged, non-drug induced and horrific psychosis

To the ones who don't believe that mental illness is real, I say this: have you ever had to suffer a pervasive, prolonged and non-drug induced "bad trip?" In fact, I never do drugs, yet this evening, I felt as if I were having a bad acid trip, mixed with a heroin overdose. None of these things would be possible were it not for schizophrenia, the dreaded disease of the brain that affects nearly 1 per cent of the population worldwide on any given day. To make matters worse, I was solely responsible for the well being of two sons, one 7 years old and one 3 years of age. There is nothing more humbling than that of having to care for a child while under the mental illness knife, that cuts deeper than a scalpel in an operating room. To the voices, I say, leave this old hat alone- he has weathered enough storms. To the paranoia, I plead, let the peace of mind wash away your caustic inky blackness. And to the delusions and over-stimulation, well, let's not add insult to injury. Wellness begins at home. It takes time. This too shall pass.

Blog for the removal of certain medications (NAMI.org repost)

Long-term Recovery: More Options, Better Treatment Needed by Kathleen Vogtle, NAMI Communications Coordinator Dr. Thomas Insel, NIMH Director weighs in on study results that, for some, may turn age-old thinking in the mental health field on its head: long-term recovery in schizophrenia may not necessarily include taking antipsychotic mediations. Insel is very clear that he is not negating the benefits of popular and even “atypical” antipsychotics. However, he states that while these medications are largely helpful for those experiencing their first psychotic episodes, their reliability decreases over time. Insel illustrates his claim based on a recently published finding by L. Wunderink in JAMA-Psychiatry. The study followed 103 people with schizophrenia over a seven-year period. After six months of remission, the participants were randomly selected to either wean off the medication, or to continue with maintenance treatment. The results were, at first, predictable. Those who were taken off the medications “experienced twice the relapse rates in the early phase of the follow-up.” Within a few years, these rates evened out, and by the conclusion of the study, a remarkable trend was revealed. Among the 103 participants, the group who had discontinued the medications had achieved a 40.4 percent “functional recovery rate,” as opposed to the 17.6 percent who had continued to use the antipsychotic. The results of the study, though, should not call into question all preconceived notions of how to treat schizophrenia. Instead, Insel believes this is an opportunity to reframe and expand upon this knowledge. He urges a more comprehensive approach: for some, antipsychotic treatment is a necessity; for others, a combination of medication and psychosocial treatment, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) might prove most effective. Still others may be most productive with no medication at all. However, it is important to assess the potential risks involved in changing any treatment or medication regimen. It is up to the individual and his/her health care provider to decide on the best course of treatment. Above all, Insel states, the term “schizophrenia” was defined a mere 100 years ago, and first generation medications developed only 50 years afterwards. This research, then, is a reminder of how much is still to be learned about this mental illness.