PsychoSaga

"Mental illness" means every type of mental disease or mental disorder, except that it does not refer to mental retardation or to insanity, diminished responsibility, or mental incompetency."Patient" means a person who has been hospitalized or ordered hospitalized to receive treatment."Private hospital" means any hospital or institution not directly supported by public funds, or a part thereof, which is equipped and staffed to provide inpatient care to persons with mental illness."Serious emotional injury" is an injury which does not necessarily exhibit any physical characteristics, but which can be recognized and diagnosed by a licensed physician or other qualified mental health professional and which can be causally connected with the act or omission of a person who is, or is alleged to be, mentally ill."Seriously mentally impaired" or "serious mental impairment" describes the condition of a person with mental illness and because of that illness lacks sufficient judgment to make responsible decisions with respect to the person's hospitalization or treatment, and who because of that illness meets any of the following criteria: a. Is likely to physically injure the person's self or others if allowed to remain at liberty without treatment. b. Is likely to inflict serious emotional injury on members of the person's family or others who lack reasonable opportunity to avoid contact with the person with mental illness if the person with mental illness is allowed to remain at liberty without treatment. c. Is unable to satisfy the person's needs for nourishment, clothing, essential medical care, or shelter so that it is likely that the person will suffer physical injury, physical debilitation, or death. HABREAS CORPUS All persons confined as seriously mentally impaired shall be entitled to the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus, and the question of serious mental impairment shall be decided at the hearing. If the judge shall decide that the person is seriously mentally impaired, such decision shall be no bar to the issuing of the writ a second time, whenever it shall be alleged that such person is no longer seriously mentally impaired. CRUELTY OR OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT If any person having the care of a person with mental illness who has voluntarily entered a hospital or other facility for treatment or care, or who is responsible for psychiatric examination care, treatment, and maintenance of any person involuntarily hospitalized under sections 229.6 to 229.15, whether in a hospital or elsewhere, with or without proper authority, shall treat such patient with unnecessary severity, harshness, or cruelty, or in any way abuse the patient or if any person unlawfully detains or deprives of liberty any person with mental illness or any person who is alleged to have mental illness, or if any officer required by the provisions of this chapter and chapters 226 and 227, to perform any act shall willfully refuse or neglect to perform the same, the offending person shall, unless otherwise provided, be guilty of a serious misdemeanor. SCHIZOPHRENIA AND BIPOLAR DISORDER ARE DISEASES OF THE BRAINIt has been suspected for over a century that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness) are diseases of the brain. In 1837, Dr. W.A.F. Browne, the best-known English psychiatrist of his generation, wrote: “Insanity, then, is inordinate or irregular, or impaired action of the mind, of the instincts, sentiments, intellectual, or perceptive powers, depending upon and produced by an organic change in the brain.” In that same year, Dr. Amariah Brigham, one of the founders of American psychiatry, also wrote that insanity “is now considered a physical disorder, a disease of the brain.”It would be 150 years, however, before these statements could be proven. Since the early 1980s, with the availability of brain imaging techniques and other developments in neuroscience, the evidence has become overwhelming that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are diseases of the brain, just like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. The brains of individuals with these diseases are measurably different from individuals who do not have these diseases, both structurally and functionally.• Individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, including those who have never been treated, have enlarged ventricles in the brain, as demonstrated in over 100 studies to date. • Individuals with schizophrenia, including those who have never been treated, have a reduced volume of gray matter in the brain, especially in the temporal and frontal lobes. • Individuals with manic-depressive disorder have an enlarged amygdala and increased numbers of white matter hyperintensities. • Individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, including those who have never been treated, have more neurological abnormalities, as shown in more than 25 studies. • Individuals with schizophrenia and manic-depressive disorder, including those who have never been treated, have more neuropsychological abnormalities that impair their cognitive functions, including information processing and verbal memory. • Individuals with schizophrenia, including those who have never been treated, show decreased function of the prefrontal area, an area of the brain that we use for planning and thinking about ourselves.Approximately 50 percent of individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, including those who have never been treated, have impaired awareness of their own illness. This is a clinical symptom called anosognosia that has been shown in at least 50 different studies. Such individuals do not realize that they are sick, and they will, therefore, usually not accept treatment voluntarily. Studies suggest that this impaired awareness is probably related to the decreased function of the prefrontal area. These individuals are thus similar to some patients who have had a stroke and, because of brain damage, are unaware of their disability and deny it. The lack of awareness of illness in individuals with schizophrenia and manic-depressive disorder is the most common reason that they do not take their medication.PsychoSaga - Everything You Love

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