Archive for » June 1st, 2012«

01 Jun 2012

Premature babies have higher mental illness risk

Babies born prematurely have a much higher risk of developing severe mental disorders including psychosis, bipolar disorder and depression, according to a study to be published on Monday.


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Scientists in Britain and Sweden found that people born very prematurely – at less than 32 weeks’ gestation – were three times more likely than those born at term to be hospitalized with a psychiatric illness at aged 16 and older.

The researchers think the increased risk may be down to small but important differences in brain development in babies born before the a full 40 week gestation period.

The risk varied depending on the condition – psychosis was 2.5 times more likely for premature babies, severe depression 3 times more likely, and bipolar disorder 7.4 times more likely for those born before 32 weeks.

The study, to be published in the Archives of General Psychiatry journal, also found smaller but significant increased psychiatric risks for babies born only moderately early, at between 32 and 36 weeks.

Chiara Nosarti from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, who led the research, said it showed “a very strong link” between premature birth and psychiatric disorders.

“Since we considered only the most severe cases that resulted in hospitalization, it may be that in real terms this link is even stronger,” Nosarti told reporters at a briefing.

She stressed, however, that: “The majority of individuals who are born prematurely have no psychiatric or cognitive problems are absolutely healthy and well functioning.”

The disorders affect between 1 and 6 percent of the population as a whole, she said.

Nosarti worked with researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and analyzed data from 1.3 million medical records in Sweden between 1973 and 1985 to find all those admitted to hospital with their first episode of a psychiatric disorder by 2002.

They then looked back to find which of these people had been born either very or moderately prematurely.

“The strongest association we found was to mental health disorders known to have a strong biological basis, such as bipolar disorder,” Nosarti said.

She said that suggested that subtle alterations in the brain development of those born early may play an important role in mental health later in life.

Previous studies have found that premature babies have higher risks of various health and developmental problems but this was the first to look in detail at links between severe psychiatric disorders and pre-term births.

A United Nations-backed report in May said 15 million babies were born prematurely in 2010, and rates of the phenomenon are soaring around the world partly because of advances in medicine which allow even extremely premature babies to survive.

Asked whether this increase could account in part for similar rises in mental illnesses and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, Nosarti said a small fraction of that may be explained by pre-term births.

The study found around 6 percent people with severe depression and 6 percent of those with psychosis were born pre-term, as were around 11 percent of people with bipolar disorder.

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp


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01 Jun 2012

Grabbing attention quickly is key as candidates compete for online donations

WASHINGTON
– Republican strategist “Karl Rove and his allies have taken the gloves off” in Ohio. Send money to stop them.

No, wait. “Hollywood-liberal-elites are trying to hijack a Senate seat in Missouri.” Funds needed now to prevent it.

These aren’t letters home from distraught relatives or friends. They are part of a ceaseless competition for campaign cash in the email era, from the race for the White House to Congress and local office.

The stakes are high, measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars every election cycle. Precisely how much is not known, since the Federal Election Commission does not require federal candidates to tally donations raised via email or websites separately from those made in response to traditional mail, phone banks or candidate calls.

In an age of multi-tasking, getting attention fast is critical.

President Barack Obama entered small-dollar donors into a lottery with a chance to have lunch with him last fall. In a follow-up, the prize is dinner with him and former President Bill Clinton.

The idea seems to be catching on. Mitt Romney’s campaign is raising funds by giving contributors a chance to be one of four picked to “sit down for a bite to eat” with the Republican presidential contender and his wife, Ann.

Some online appeals include video, like one Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., included of her rival, Pete Hoekstra, saying he favored drilling for oil in the Great Lakes laterally from onshore platforms.

Others seek a signature on an online petition, an act meant to create a sense of empowerment in the signer, and one that leads quickly to a request for funds.

Opponents of the recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker often send email requests for money that include a list of names of “Great Patriots” and the amounts they have donated. The hope is that others will join.

“It’s like a two-minute elevator pitch,” said Taryn Rosenkranz, whose company, New Blue Interactive, works for Democratic candidates and causes. “You don’t have very much time before you’ve lost the reader.”

Messages delivered digitally are “faster and more agile than TV, direct mail or phones. You can initiate a fundraising campaign the day a news story hits or something of note occurs in the political environment,” said Ben Olson, director of online services for the Republican-aligned firm Arena Communications.

Even preview lines — those short phrases that summarize items in an email inbox — are viewed as critically important. “Nasty, vindictive and liberal to boot!” read one recently, practically begging to be opened. “Exclusive: We want you to be the first to see this,” confided another mass email.

Technology lets campaigns know instantly how much money is coming in the door in response to the latest pitch. “A lot of times what you can do is put out two or three different versions and put them out to different demographics and sometimes through different websites,” said Steve McMahon, a Democratic political consultant.

Increasingly, campaigns use Facebook and other social media websites to raise money. Erik Nilsson, vice president at CMDI, a Republican-aligned firm, claims credit on the company’s website for showing that online fundraising yields “can be increased by 52 percent by engaging donors through social networks.”

In an interview, Nilsson said, “Friends asking friends are more likely to get a donation and when those donations come in … they come in much higher.”

The next frontier may be donation by text message, which is currently banned.

Among the obstacles is a long lag between the time a donation is made and when it is transferred to the campaign by the mobile company. Also, a text donation to a charity, for example, provides a donor’s cellphone number, but not name, address and occupation, information the Federal Election Commission requires to ensure a contribution is legal.

Lawyers representing a pair of consulting firms, one allied with each of the two major political parties, have recommended steps to overcome the difficulties and last month asked the FEC to permit donations by texting.

None of the technical considerations is readily apparent to the potential donor, left to sift through competing appeals.

No event or issue, it seems, is too minor to trigger an urgent and/or outraged request for contributions.

The campaign of Sen. Sherrod Brown wants money because Rove and his allies “have taken the gloves off” and are attacking the Ohio Democrat. “If we can’t hit the million-dollar goal for our No Fear Fund, we’ll get buried before the summer even starts,” said a recent email.

Sarah Steelman, a Republican running for the Senate in Missouri, warned recently that Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill “has a series of liberal celebrities who are funding her campaign … defeat Hollywood’s Third Senator,” it says. Photos of Danny DeVito, Susan Sarandon, Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg are included, superimposed on the iconic Hollywood sign in the hills of Los Angeles.


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01 Jun 2012

Nautica Charity Poker Festivals close their doors

CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) -

After hosting Texas Hold ‘Em players for the past eight years and raising over $10,000,000 in contributions for Northeast Ohio charities, the Nautica Charity Poker Festivals will close their doors on Sunday, June 3.

Created to generate revenue for local charities as well as increase public awareness of the Nautica Entertainment Complex as a potential gaming site, the Nautica Charity Poker Festivals opened in June, 2005 in a temporary Festival Center located at Nautica. In their first year of operation, the Nautica Charity Poker Festivals raised over $400,000 in contributions for 12 charities, including Special Olympics, Up Side of Downs, and Northeast Ohio Breast Cancer Coalition.

“While providing millions for charity, the charity festivals also demonstrated the demand for gaming in Ohio, and showed charities that it was a viable source of revenue,” said Dave Grunenwald, Vice President of Development/Leasing for Jacobs Investments, which owns the Nautica Entertainment Complex.

The formula for the Nautica Charity Poker Festivals was simple – charities supply the volunteers required to run each Festival, including dealers to comply with state law. While players keep their cash winnings, charities collect all funds and receive their proceeds in the form of hourly seat fees and concession income.

In 2006 over $700,000 was raised for charities (approximately $30,000 per 4-day festival held by each charity) and the number of charity poker festivals doubled to 24. “That’s significant cash flow coming from a new source instead of traditional fundraising sources that have had increasing demands placed on them,” noted Carolina Martin, Executive Director of Art on Wheels, a charity hosting Festivals since 2005.

By 2008, the charity poker festivals expanded to 46 weeks and raised $1,500,000 in donations for local charities. “We continually learned how to run the poker festivals more efficiently so that charities could realize larger donations. Automatic card shufflers simplified the task of dealing cards, and the method by which charity funds were collected was changed to a rake format (small portion of money goes to charity from each pot) instead of collecting money from each player on an hourly basis,” added Mr. Grunenwald.

In 2011 the Nautica Charity Poker Festivals moved to a new facility in the Apartments at Nautica building at the Nautica Entertainment Complex. Almost $3,000,000 in donations was raised by 87 charities hosting Festivals in 2011.

Attendance at the Nautica Charity Poker Festivals fell more than 80% after the Horseshoe Casino opened its doors. “We realized that the charity poker festivals would not be able to compete with the opening of the Horseshoe Casino. That’s why we, and dozens of Northeast Ohio charities lobbied the Ohio legislature requesting that the Nautica charities be allowed to compete with paid dealers. Unfortunately our efforts were not successful,” said Grunenwald.

“It has been a great run for charities, Texas Hold ‘Em players, and the thousands of volunteers that made the Nautica Charity Poker Festivals a success over the past 8 years,” said Pat McKinley, Executive Vice President of Jacobs Investments, Inc. “We are so proud to have developed a concept that resulted in $10 million raised for Northeast Ohio charities,” added McKinley.

 


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01 Jun 2012

Analysis: Greeks count mental health cost of a country in crisis

LONDON (Reuters) – Behind every suicide in crisis-stricken countries such as Greece there are up to 20 more people desperate enough to have tried to end their own lives.

And behind those attempted suicides, experts say there are thousands of hidden cases of mental illness, like depression, alcohol abuse and anxiety disorder, that never make the news, but have large and potentially long-lasting human costs.

The risk, according to some public health experts, is that if and when Greece’s economic woes are over, a legacy of mental illness could remain in a generation of young people damaged by too many years of life without hope.

“Austerity can turn a crisis into an epidemic,” said David Stuckler, a sociologist at Britain‘s Cambridge University who has been studying the health impacts of biting budget cuts in Europe as the euro crisis lurches on.

“Job loss can lead to an accumulation of risks that can tip people into depression and severe mental illness which can be difficult to reverse – especially if people are not getting appropriate care,” Stuckler said.

“Untreated mental illness, just like other forms of illness, can escalate and develop into a problem that is much more difficult to treat later on.”

ACCUMULATION OF RISKS

Youth unemployment in Greece is more than 50 percent and evidence of peoples’ disaffection is becoming more visible.

The sight of groups of youths hanging around the streets getting high on illicit drugs is not uncommon in Athens, while a Greek pensioner who hanged himself in the capital on Wednesday was found with a note saying he had always worked hard but had got himself into debt.

Greece is in its fifth year of recession and the prospects for many are bleak. Economists reckon the austerity measures Greece is battling with – cuts the health minister characterized as being made with a butcher’s knife rather than a scalpel – offer it slim hope of recovery any time soon.

Those who have jobs are being hit with wage cuts or pay freezes, and live in constant fear of being the next employee to face the chop. Research has found this feeling of profound insecurity can do more psychological damage than anything else.

Peter Kinderman, a professor of clinical psychology at Britain’s University of Liverpool, says the mental health impact of all this turmoil will be rapid and dramatic.

“Instead of seeing a slow increase in the epidemiology of mental illness, what we’re seeing is what we predicted – that these economic impacts have rapid significance for our way of thinking about the world,” he told Reuters.

And while economic crises may have mental health effects, mental illness in turn has increasingly significant economic effects – raising the prospect of a vicious cycle.

According to a paper prepared for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2011, the economic consequences of mental health problems – mainly in the form of lost productivity – are estimated to average between 3 and 4 percent of gross national product in European Union countries.

And because mental disorders often start in young adulthood, the loss of productivity can be long-lasting, experts say.

CRITICAL WINDOW

Stuckler says there is a “critical window” for connecting people in need of psychiatric help to the services that could benefit them, and talks of a “high risk phase” when vulnerable young people haven’t been able to realize what they hoped to do, and then feel like they’re being left behind in a recovery.

“You don’t want them to sink into being chronically unemployed,” he said. “Because that ends up increasing the costs and pressure on the welfare system further down the line”.

In Greece, suicide rates are already rising rapidly, albeit from a low starting point. Suicides rose by 17 percent between 2007 and 2009, and by 40 percent in the first half of 2011 compared with the same period in 2010, according to a report in the Lancet medical journal last year.

And judging from the experience of financial crises elsewhere, unemployment, poverty and insecurity will also lead to upward trends in demand for mental health services just as they are being cut back.

“Some people can be very profoundly affected … and end up unhappy and depressed for very long periods for time,” said Kinderman. “And I suspect some of the casualties in an economic downturn may undergo such fundamental changes in the way they understand themselves and the world, that that way of thinking will last.”

Peter Lloyd Sherlock, professor of social policy at Britain’s University of East Anglia, suggests looking to history for lessons. He points out that in Argentina, which experienced a dire financial downturn from 1999 to 2002, there was a 40 percent increase in consultations in mental health facilities in 2002, according to government data, and there was also a sharp increase in prescriptions of antidepressants.

Previous research has found that people who fall into unemployment and poverty have a significantly greater risk of mental health problems – and men are at especially increased risk of mental illness, suicide or alcohol abuse during hard times.

Evidence cited in the WHO report suggests the more debt people have, the more likely they are to have mental disorders.

“If the Greek economic woes were to continue for 10 years or more, probably the most important overall effect on mental and physical health will actually be a big increase in inequality,” Lloyd Sherlock said.

DO DEPRESSIONS ALWAYS BREED DEPRESSION?

But does economic depression always mean more psychological depression?

Not necessarily.

Public health experts point to some countries, such as Sweden and Finland, which in times of crisis managed to avoid increases in mental illness and suicide rates by investing in employment initiatives to help get people back on their feet.

In the early 1990s, Sweden underwent a severe bank crisis which sparked a rapid rise in unemployment, but suicide rates were broadly unaffected. In contrast, Spain, which had multiple banking crises in the 1970s and 1980s, saw suicide rates rise as unemployment rates did.

Some experts say a key differentiating factor was the extent to which resources were budgeted for social protection, such as family support, unemployment benefit and healthcare services.

Looking ahead to what he hopes may be less fragile financial times for Greece, Kinderman sounds an optimistic note. While there’s a risk of long-term psychological problems for some, he says, evidence also suggests the majority of people can bounce back if and when economic prospects brighten.

“If you have economic recovery, many people could spark back up into a more optimistic and more self-assured frame of mind relatively quickly,” he said. “The message for politicians is get the bloody economy right and we’ll start functioning again.”

(Editing by David Holmes)


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01 Jun 2012

Premature babies have higher psychiatric risk


By Kate Kelland

LONDON |
Fri Jun 1, 2012 1:19pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) – Babies born prematurely have a much higher risk of developing severe mental disorders including psychosis, bipolar disorder and depression, according to a study to be published on Monday.

Scientists in Britain and Sweden found that people born very prematurely – at less than 32 weeks’ gestation – were three times more likely than those born at term to be hospitalized with a psychiatric illness at aged 16 and older.

The researchers think the increased risk may be down to small but important differences in brain development in babies born before the a full 40 week gestation period.

The risk varied depending on the condition – psychosis was 2.5 times more likely for premature babies, severe depression 3 times more likely, and bipolar disorder 7.4 times more likely for those born before 32 weeks.

The study, to be published in the Archives of General Psychiatry journal, also found smaller but significant increased psychiatric risks for babies born only moderately early, at between 32 and 36 weeks.

Chiara Nosarti from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, who led the research, said it showed “a very strong link” between premature birth and psychiatric disorders.

“Since we considered only the most severe cases that resulted in hospitalization, it may be that in real terms this link is even stronger,” Nosarti told reporters at a briefing.

She stressed, however, that: “The majority of individuals who are born prematurely have no psychiatric or cognitive problems are absolutely healthy and well functioning.”

The disorders affect between 1 and 6 percent of the population as a whole, she said.

Nosarti worked with researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and analyzed data from 1.3 million medical records in Sweden between 1973 and 1985 to find all those admitted to hospital with their first episode of a psychiatric disorder by 2002.

They then looked back to find which of these people had been born either very or moderately prematurely.

“The strongest association we found was to mental health disorders known to have a strong biological basis, such as bipolar disorder,” Nosarti said.

She said that suggested that subtle alterations in the brain development of those born early may play an important role in mental health later in life.

Previous studies have found that premature babies have higher risks of various health and developmental problems but this was the first to look in detail at links between severe psychiatric disorders and pre-term births.

A United Nations-backed report in May said 15 million babies were born prematurely in 2010, and rates of the phenomenon are soaring around the world partly because of advances in medicine which allow even extremely premature babies to survive.

Asked whether this increase could account in part for similar rises in mental illnesses and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, Nosarti said a small fraction of that may be explained by pre-term births.

The study found around 6 percent people with severe depression and 6 percent of those with psychosis were born pre-term, as were around 11 percent of people with bipolar disorder.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)


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01 Jun 2012

Facebook Project Facilitates Kidney Donations

On May 1, the social networking site Facebook launched a project to put people willing to donate a kidney in touch with those in need of a kidney transplant. Members who want to donate a kidney were urged to post a status update indicating that. Many experts say the move could increase the supply of donated kidneys, but they point to ethical and medical concerns.

In the United States alone, there are an estimated 114,000 people waiting for an organ transplant. The vast majority are seeking a kidney, either from a live donor – since we each have two kidneys – or someone who had agreed to donate their organs after death. Every day, 18 people in the U.S. die, waiting for a kidney to become available.  

So, Facebook has begun encouraging its U.S. members who want to donate a kidney to declare their desire to do so on their page.  With the number of Facebook members approaching one billion worldwide, some transplant specialists are excited that the initiative could dramatically increase the supply of live donor kidneys.  

In an interview on Skype, David Fleming of Donate Life America, a Richmond, Virginia-based organization dedicated to encouraging people to donate their organs for transplant, said declaring a decision to become an organ donor on Facebook is an opportunity to save a life.

“I think it’s rare in our lives here on this Earth that we have an opportunity to do something, that is going to impact, save or heal someone’s life or restore sight,” Fleming noted. “And what an incredible way to leave this world is to be able to offer someone else a chance at a second life, to be able to have children or get married or see their children graduate from high school or college.  It’s just an incredible, selfless act of kindness.”

People have used Facebook to appeal for kidneys long before the website launched its live kidney donation drive. Last October, researchers at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, decided to examine some 90 Facebook pages to see who sought kidneys and what sorts of responses they got. The pages surveyed included members between the ages of two and 69.

Lead researcher Alex Chang, a kidney specialist, found that 12 percent of the members reported receiving a kidney, while 30 percent indicated that a number of members volunteered to be tested to see whether they would be a match. On one page, seeking a kidney for a young child, 600 potential donors stepped forward.

While many Facebook members offering a kidney are well-intentioned and honest, Chang says there could be dangers in dealing with strangers on the social networking site.  

For one thing, people in search of organs often reveal very private medical information.  Chang says researchers also found a number of questionable offers from Facebook members, particularly in developing countries.

“You know some of them sounded pretty genuine,” noted Chang. “Like they would say, ‘I’m trying to complete college and I need X amount of money.  And I’ve thought about it thoroughly and all the risks of donating a kidney, and I really want to sell my kidney to you.’  And you know it’s not legal, it’s definitely not legal (to sell organs) in the U.S.”

The sale of kidneys from living donors has been banned since 1984, when Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act. Nevertheless, Chang says some potential donors were asking for an average of $30 – $40,000 for a kidney.

Loyola University’s Alex Chang presented his findings at a recent meeting of the National Kidney Foundation. As for the social network campaign, Facebook announced that as of mid-May, more than 100,000 of its users had signed up to be live kidney donors.


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01 Jun 2012

Charity Fraud: Is That Celeb Legit?

It’s one thing to think twice before sending cash to a Nigerian ex-ambassador who perished in a plane crash and named you as the beneficiary of his $25 million inheritance.

It’s quite another to donate money to Mary J. Blige, whose Foundation for Advancement of Women Now (FFAWN) is being sued by TD Bank for a $250,000 loan that was taken out in June 2011 –and only $368.33 has been repaid. Or to “Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson, who was recently ordered to repay $1 million in donations to his various charities. Or to phony Hurricane Katrina, Japan earthquake or tornado relief organizations.

“We see a lot of phony charities that pop up after storms or disasters,” said Katherine Hutt, a spokesperson for the Council of Better Business Bureaus in Arlington, Va. Indeed, the National Center for Disaster Fraud, which the Department of Justice established in 2005 to investigate, prosecute and deter fraud associated with federal disaster relief programs following Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.



The most recent data shows that in 2010, Americans donated $211.77 billion to charity, reports the Giving USA Foundation, a research and education group, and its research partner, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. But while giving has increased, so has the number of fraudulent charities, reports the U.S. Department of Justice.

The tactics range from the high-tech to low-tech. Phishing, for example, is a real hazard: Users simply click on email links that lead to bogus web sites that appear legit but aren’t. Instead, the users’ credit card information and passwords are stolen.

“Legitimacy is a big issue today, particularly in time of crises,” said Bob Ottenhoff, president and CEO of GuideStar, which collects information– including nonprofits’ official Web addresses, tax forms and financial data–on the 1.9 million non-profit organizations in the U.S. “Fake web sites pop up. It’s good to be a little skeptical, and if you don’t know the charity or haven’t heard about it before or are not quite sure, that’s a reason to say, ‘I’ll think about it’. I often say, ‘send me some information.” Ninety percent of the time you never hear from them.”

The best way to protect yourself is to be proactive. Consumer and charity watchdog sites like the Better Business Bureau, Charity Navigator and GuideStar also list nonprofits’ official web addresses, as well as tax forms and financial data. The BBB also rates them based on 20 standards of accountability, including the structure of the board of directors and the transparency of financial data.

“We recommend that donors check out three things before they give,” said Sandra Miniutti, Charity Navigator’s vice president.

First is the charity’s financial health. Either go onto a charity watchdog site like Charity Navigator, which also rates nonprofits, or ask the organization for a copy of their Form 990, an informational tax return that charities must file annually with the IRS. By law, they are required to provide it to anyone requesting a copy.

You should also check on issues around accountability and transparency.


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01 Jun 2012

NHH offers open house on mental health services

By CECILIA NASMITH Northumberland Today

Posted 7 hours ago

COBOURG — Care close to home has always been the Northumberland Hills Hospital motto.

Their June 7 open house for their Community Mental Health Services is the chance to learn more about that aspect of caring.

From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at their location at 1011 Elgin St. (Suite 200, located upstairs), you can learn firsthand about group counselling and one-on-one support services offered, take home a brochure with information and contacts, meet the team behind it, and bring your questions to be answered — for yourself or for a loved one.

“This is a first, to my knowledge, for the mental health program at NHH,” director of community mental-health services Scott Pepin said.

“Far too often, mental illness is simply not discussed and, by extension, the supports in place to manage illness and minimize its impact on a healthy life are not well known.

“Our open house has a simple aim: to build awareness about our services in the community we serve,” Pepin stated.

The service supports individuals aged 16 and older who are experiencing a new or long-standing mental illness. The hospital works collaboratively with community agencies to provide mental-health services in Cobourg, Port Hope and Brighton as well as Alderville First Nation and the townships of Hamilton, Alnwick/Haldimand and Cramahe.

The hospital’s Assertive Community Treatment Team (ACT) and Housing Support programs serve all of Northumberland County.

To help with planning, anyone interested is asked to RSVP by June 4 by calling Debra Fisher at 905-377-9891.

cecilia.nasmith@sunmedia.ca

twitter.com/NT_cnasmith

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01 Jun 2012

Accessing mental-health treatment requires stiff criteria

If Ian Stawicki was as ill as his family says, how come he wasn’t forced to undergo involuntary mental-health treatment?

It’s a question being asked in the wake of Wednesday’s shootings. But people familiar with the mental-health system say it’s not so simple as it may seem. Especially in Washington.

Every month between 1,500 and 2,000 people are evaluated by mental-health professionals under the state’s Involuntary Treatment Act, (ITA) which allows for a person with a psychiatric illness to be detained in a hospital for treatment.

Under the ITA, a person must present an imminent threat to him- or herself or others, or be “gravely disabled.” In about two-thirds of cases where patients are mentally ill enough to be brought in for evaluation, they are sent home because they don’t meet the criteria.

“It’s a very steep hill to climb,” King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said of the level of evidence required to hold someone.

The key word is “imminent.” That means a specific threat, against a specific target, that can be carried out immediately.

“We’ve had cases where a general homicidal ideation is not sufficient,” Satterberg said. “Grave disability” is also a high threshold to meet, he said.

Families with mentally ill loved ones have long believed the bar is too high, said Farrell Adrian, president of National Alliance of Mental Illness Washington, a support group for families of people with mental illness.

Over and over, she’s heard stories of families taking the momentous step of requesting an evaluation for their loved one, only to be told he or she is not dangerous or disabled enough.

“Our response is largely inadequate to help families in crisis,” Satterberg said.

There’s a second hurdle in Washington: a shortage of beds. A 2006 survey showed Washington ranked 47th among the states in the number of psychiatric beds per capita.

Satterberg calls the result a failure of government.

The Legislature in 2010 amended the ITA to make it easier to detain a patient for involuntary treatment. The change was supposed to take effect this year, however, it was placed on hold due to budget constraints.

Reporter Jonathan Martin contributed to this story. Maureen O’Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com


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01 Jun 2012

Accessing mental-health treatment requires stiff criteria

If Ian Stawicki was as ill as his family says, how come he wasn’t forced to undergo involuntary mental-health treatment?

It’s a question being asked in the wake of Wednesday’s shootings. But people familiar with the mental-health system say it’s not so simple as it may seem. Especially in Washington.

Every month between 1,500 and 2,000 people are evaluated by mental-health professionals under the state’s Involuntary Treatment Act, (ITA) which allows for a person with a psychiatric illness to be detained in a hospital for treatment.

Under the ITA, a person must present an imminent threat to him- or herself or others, or be “gravely disabled.” In about two-thirds of cases where patients are mentally ill enough to be brought in for evaluation, they are sent home because they don’t meet the criteria.

“It’s a very steep hill to climb,” King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said of the level of evidence required to hold someone.

The key word is “imminent.” That means a specific threat, against a specific target, that can be carried out immediately.

“We’ve had cases where a general homicidal ideation is not sufficient,” Satterberg said. “Grave disability” is also a high threshold to meet, he said.

Families with mentally ill loved ones have long believed the bar is too high, said Farrell Adrian, president of National Alliance of Mental Illness Washington, a support group for families of people with mental illness.

Over and over, she’s heard stories of families taking the momentous step of requesting an evaluation for their loved one, only to be told he or she is not dangerous or disabled enough.

“Our response is largely inadequate to help families in crisis,” Satterberg said.

There’s a second hurdle in Washington: a shortage of beds. A 2006 survey showed Washington ranked 47th among the states in the number of psychiatric beds per capita.

Satterberg calls the result a failure of government.

The Legislature in 2010 amended the ITA to make it easier to detain a patient for involuntary treatment. The change was supposed to take effect this year, however, it was placed on hold due to budget constraints.

Reporter Jonathan Martin contributed to this story. Maureen O’Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com


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