3,181 Comments Posted by Lynne

*That was a great study by Rosenhan. I was in my first year of college when that study came out (1973), so you can see how ancient I am. :-) Don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but these days due to the various laws and due to insurance and federal and state funding, it is very difficult to get someone in a mental health facility involuntarily and even if you WANT to be there, funding lapses pretty quickly, so what they described in this study is less likely to happen. All you had to due was blink and you might get an involuntary commitment and it was VERY difficult to get out. The current legal demonstration of "danger to self or others" is quite strict, so this can be positive or negative depending on whether you want/need services or want to avoid them. However, his point that we all tend to judge people based on what we hear about them before we meet them (whether correct or incorrect) still holds true and probably always will.

*As regards visual hallucinations, in schizophrenia if visual hallucinations occur they generally co-occur with auditory hallucinations - they rarely occur alone. There are 5 senses. When we say that visual hallucinations come in second after auditory hallucinations that doesn't necessarily mean that there are a large number of them, just that they are reported MORE often than gustatory, olfactory, or tactile hallucinations, the last three occurring almost exclusively as a result of organic causes (unless they are all occurring together in someone who has frankly decompensated). This is a good way to differentiate the organic syndromes such as Lewy body dementia, Charles Bonnet syndrome, vertebro-basilar artery syndrome, head injuries, epilepsy, electrolyte imbalance, DTs, medication side effects, etc., from schizophrenia. As well, it is helpful when people are malingering (pretending to be psychotic). If someone comes to you and says they see things but aren't also hearing things and haven't shown signs of overall deterioration, you are then able to rule out or decrease the chances that someone has certain disease processes, such as schizophrenia.

*My initial point was to tease Nauseous about a patient reporting that they saw Motts but the staff thinking the patient had made it up, because, as I said, if someone has not shown an overall gross deterioration, is not currently experiencing both auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations, a well-trained (there's the rub) psychiatric technician would know right away that perhaps something needed to be checked out if they claimed to see someone in the area where Motts was.

*However, I did a poor job and the point obviously suffered and died in translation. :-(

http://www.medic8.com/healthguide/articles/schizophrenia.html

"Visual hallucinations are more characteristic of organic states if occurring alone, and olfactory or gustatory hallucinations in particular should stimulate a search for organic pathology, particularly temporal lobe epilepsy."

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/325/7365/644

"The main differential diagnosis of delirium is from a functional psychosis (such as schizophrenia and manic depression) and from dementia. Functional psychoses are not associated with obvious cognitive impairment, and visual hallucinations are more common in delirium."

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20030301/1027.html

"While visual hallucinations can occur in patients with primary psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia, they are much less common than auditory hallucinations. In primary psychiatric disorders, visual hallucinations would be associated with other, more characteristic signs and symptoms of the disorders."

8`-) Very bad . . . but funny. 8`-)

*Great information about the historical belief that epilepsy and mental disease were thought to be incompatible, p0lyamor0us - thanks!

*As an FYI, if you are going to protect someone's tongue and teeth you generally avoid metal mouthpieces, such as these dental inserts. Most tongue and teeth protectors were either rubber tubing you bit down on, gauze-wrapped/padded tongue protectors placed between the teeth, or "mouth gags" that were small rubber pieces that dentists developed that you place between the back teeth (and are still used today in some dental procedures - Courtney could tell us more) to prevent the teeth from clamping down when a convulsion occurred.

*Here's a good article on the history of shock therapy and some pix of some the mouthpieces they used - it also contains some of the information noted above about the historical belief of the incompatibility of epilepsy and mental disease:
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n04/historia/shock_i.htm

*As well, it shows some pix of old ECT machines, so those of you who do urban exploring in old hospitals may be able to identify these if you see any. Eh, just don't get excited and zap yourselves . . . :-)

GREAT idea, Amanda!

I know - who'da thunk it? I had no idea they were ever that big. I also had no idea that ventilators were only developed in the early to mid-50's. I guess I thought they had been around for a lot longer.

Scott, MaDMaN, Amanda, Cyrus, and Bratty got it - it's an old ventilator (also called a respirator)!

http://www.shef.ac.uk/~a/museum/jefferson_ventilator.html

"Jefferson Ventilator

Originally designed in 1955 as an improvement of the Allbritten designed the previous year. A Classic bag in bottle ventilator, made by Air-Shields Inc in the USA. This one was bought in 1962 for cardio thoracic surgery."

Oh, I'm sorry. :-(

Great info - thanks!
And you are right - there is something bizarre about the Statue of Liberty being copper colored rather than green - seems "wrong." 8`-)

Dang! That's it! I used to call it "Pepto-Bismol Pink", but you are right - it WAS "Baker's Pink" - thanks! :-)

:-)

Here is some info specific to Letchworth, but all institutional facilities for people with mental retardation and/or developmental disabilities (MR/DD) are downsizing or closing as services are finally being provided for these folks in the community. The term for an institution for people with MR/DD is "institutional care facility for the mentally retarded", or ICF-MR.
http://www.omr.state.ny.us/...aniv/hp_journal2let.jsp
http://www.recordonline.com/a...vwmaince.htm
http://www.thejournalnews.com/app...023/NEWS07

Oops - sorry - didn't mean to leave you out. So is there a lot of copper in buildings or do people have to work pretty hard to get it out? I guess I never think of copper being used but when I watched a house being built some years ago I remember being there when they put in some copper tubing for what I guess was the water pipes? But then water and air turn copper green. OK, you building-savvy people - what all is copper used for?
Thanks for answering, MaDMaN. :-)

Nauseous, you goose! Of course we pay attention to people in hospitals. You learn pretty quickly what is real and what is delusional for each person. Besides, visual hallucinations are pretty rare - they are associated more with organic conditions and hallucinogenic drugs, so if someone says they see something in an adjacent building and it is someone who has never talked about a visual hallucination before you would certainly check it out. Of course, this is assuming you have enough assigned staff to do it and take care of the folks on your caseload at the same time, which is more of a concern.

Em . . . not to sound pushy, but we are ready for them right now. ;-)

Most large institutions now have back-up generators for power outages, especially institutions that have folks with medical conditions. As well, most (all?) areas are issued LOTS of flashlights (big 'uns) to use in the case of a power outage and they are supposed to test them monthly.