Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia

Chicago doctor accused of taking kickbacks to prescribe clozapine

In 2007 he prescribed various medications to 4,141 Medicaid patients, including more prescriptions for clozapine than were written by all the doctors in Texas put together, Medicaid records show. Records also showed he was getting government reimbursement for seeing an improbably large number of patients.

Doctor accused of taking kickbacks to prescribe anti-psychotic drug


Staff report

3:42 p.m. CST, November 15, 2012

A federal lawsuit accuses a Chicago psychiatrist of getting illegal kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies and submitting at least 140,000 false claims to Medicare and Medicaid for anti-psychotic medications he prescribed for thousands of mentally ill patients in nursing homes.

Dr. Michael J. Reinstein also submitted at least 50,000 claims to Medicare and Medicaid falsely claiming he had provided “pharmacologic management” for his patients at more than 30 area nursing homes and long-term care facilities, according to the health care fraud lawsuit filed by the U.S. attorney’s office.

“This is the largest civil case alleging prescription medication fraud against an individual ever brought in Chicago,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Gary S. Shapiro.

Reinstein was the subject of an investigation by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune in 2009 that found Reinstein, 69, had compiled a worrisome record of providing assembly-line care with a highly risky drug.

Searching publicly available documents, reporters discovered that Reinstein had been accused of …………………….

read the rest here

After reading this article, I have several questions not specifically connected with this particular case: Why are mentally ill people in nursing homes in the first place? Warehoused by their families? Disabled by years of drug use? A special arrangement with Medicare/Medicaid? Are old people considered mentally ill by definition? Is dementia considered a mental illness? And, I can’t believe that clozapine, as stated in the article, is taken by 4% of patients. I bet the figure is much higher. Clozapine has been widely touted, since the time of the  CATIE study, at least, as the greatest thing since sliced bread. There are many shameful aspects to this newspaper report. 

Schizophrenia Commission not re-thinking schizophernia label

Louise Gillett writes about Rethink Mental Illness Members’ Day and other matters in her most recent post. Status and the status quo, continue to be alive and well in England, like they are in so many other countries where official “commissions” are established to preserve the status quo. Shame, shame!

Here’s an excerpt from Louise’s blog, Schizophrenia at the Schoolgate:

I suffered a major disappointment yesterday – I learned that the Schizophrenia Commission have not recommended that the label be abolished or changed as I had hoped.  (The report is not due to be published until next week but I feel no sense of loyalty that would prevent me from publishing this ‘spoiler’). 

I was not actually surprised to find out that the label has not been changed – I suspected as much by the fact that after asking me to write a case study (of my own case) I was asked if I would mind if it was ‘tweaked’ to reflect the fact that some members of the Commission do not agree with my view of the damage done by the diagnosis of schizophrenia.  After some thought I rejected my instinct towards compliance and wrote back to say that if they did use my case study I would prefer the wording left intact.  They agreed to use the case study as I wrote it, and apparently it has been included in the report (although I think anonymously.  I am not sure, I have not seen it, but one of the other Trustees who I spoke to yesterday dropped a big hint to this effect).  Although of course, it might be removed after I have published this blog post!

So I had an inkling of what the outcome of this report would be – and it was confirmed as soon as I saw the title of Robin Murray’s*  talk at the meeting yesterday – ‘What next for the Schizophrenia Commission?’

So the Schizophrenia Commission will continue – having already let down the people they are supposed to be helping.

I am staggered that they haven’t effected the change.  Robin Murray was questioned on the subject by a member of the audience and he couldn’t produce a coherent reply – he stuttered and stumbled over the issue, saying there were differing views, even claiming that, ‘The Schizophrenia Commission doesn’t have the power to say one way or another’ (really, Sir Robin?).  Eventually he told us that although the diagnosis had been changed in some countries it wasn’t going to happen here at the moment, but that maybe in a few years time, things would be different.

_________________________
Rossa’s comment: Do we think this guy’s going to change the system?

Robin Murray

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Robin MacGregor Murray (born 1944) is professor of Psychiatric Research at the Institute of Psychiatry (Kings College, London, United Kingdom).[1] He also sees patients with schizophrenia and bipolar illness at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. He is originally from Glasgow. Murray is part of The Psychosis Research Group, one of the largest outside the United States. It uses a range of methods to improve understanding and treatment of psychotic illnesses, particularly schizophrenia. For the decade from 1997 to 2007, Murray was ranked as the 8th most influential researcher in psychiatry by Thomson Reuters’ Science Watch[2] and 3rd in schizophrenia research.[3] In 1994 he was the president of the European Association of Psychiatrists; now the European Psychiatric Association. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (elected 2010) and also a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.[1] Murray is co-editor-in-chief of Psychological Medicine.[4] In 2009 Murray had a public disagreement with David Nutt in the pages of The Guardian about the dangers of cannabis in triggering psychosis.[5] Murray previously wrote that while the risk increase is “about five-fold […] for the heaviest users”, the issue has become political football.[3] Murray has commented repeatedly on these issues in BBC articles and programmes,[6][7][8] including in a Panorama documentary on BBC One.[9][10] He has also been critical of the proposed use of cannabis for its anti-depressive effects as a “very big leap of faith” based solely on preclinical data.[11] Murray was knighted in the 2011 New Year Honours for his services to medicine.[12]

The scientifically demonstrated effects of qi on the human body

Here’s a YouTube clip showing demonstrable, measurable evidence of the effects of qi  on the human body. Austin Goh teaches human energy healing and is a master of Wing Chun kung fu.
Pier Rubesa is an independent researcher looking into the practical uses of sound waves in living systems as the basis for diagnostic schemes therapeutic systems and their interaction (bioharmonic research).

Chris and I were clients of Pier’s. You can see the room where, over the course of a year, Chris was treated by Pier using the same technology. The difference is that in this video, human touch, not sound waves, is the medium being manipulated to bring about changes in the body. If you look closer at the video you will see speakers situated at various points in the room. In a sound therapy session, Pier introduces pure sounds that vibrate to the individual colors of the chakras. The machine picks up the body’s reactions to the sound or the touch through sensors that are placed under the mattress.

Here’s a link to some of the posts where I discussed the sound therapy. (Note: Chris was quicker than most to achieve an out-of-body experience.) If you wish to read more, just put “sound therapy” in the search bar.
http://holisticschizophrenia.blogspot.ch/2009/11/holistic-explanation-of-out-of-body.html
http://holisticschizophrenia.blogspot.ch/2009/12/desert-matrix.html
http://holisticschizophrenia.blogspot.ch/2009/11/myths-are-public-dreams-dreams-are.html

Will Hall on extremism

Will Hall, author of The Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Medications, has articulated my thoughts on the dangers of the pendulum swinging too far in either direction. We’ve experienced the one extreme (the biochemical model) of being told that psych meds are the only solution for brain “disease,” that medication is normally forever, and that side effects are tolerable and manageable. The growing backlash to that extreme rightfully came about because truthful information was being withheld. But there are now a lot of people working to force the pendulum in the other direction, the one that promotes the idea that medications to treat distress are more dangerous than they are in many cases, that mental illness will go away if people would only get off their meds. A lot of the recovery movements complaints are with how psychiatry has abandoned the nurture of the psyche, therefore perhaps we over-vilify the meds — the most obvious thing psychiatry does do these days. (It’s an easy target.)

I agree with Will, that we are in danger of creating a backlash if we don’t take a more balanced approach. (Remember, we want the pendulum to swing disproportionately on our side for as long as possible.) One way to avoid the backlash is to be careful not to replicate the mistake of withholding or denying information that doesn’t fit our sometimes simplistic view of getting on or off the drugs.

In the comments section to his post, Will writes:

I think, in our efforts to alert the world about the dangers of psych drugs, we sometimes overstate the case. Psychiatry has erred for so long in favor of meds, we shouldn’t make the opposite mistake by exaggerating the dangers of drugs.That is not to deny that people are killed and seriously damaged by medications, but if we express only these accounts we are distorting a complicated picture.

What I am seeing these days is people and families who read Bob’s work and think that getting off meds is the solution. Often it is, like a magic bullet in reverse. Sometimes it’s not. I fear if we promote coming off meds, we are setting ourselves up for a backlash just like is happening now to those who promoted taking meds. Maybe a smaller backlash, and maybe the overarching message is better, but I’d rather be honest at the outset.
Will Hall is always worth reading. He knows his stuff and he’s willing to admit what he doesn’t know, and that people and situations are complex. Here’s the link to his post at the Mad in America site. 

Ubuntu

Op-Ed

Lost and Found in Santa Barbara

by Suzanne Beachy

November 7, 2012

                   

          A few springs ago, I flew out to Santa Barbara from Columbus, Ohio for what would have been my son Jake’s 29th birthday. I needed to see for myself where he had lived and died as a homeless person the year before. Even now as I write those words, I am flooded by sorrow and shame. How could this have happened? How could my beautiful, sensitive, generous, funny, brilliantly creative son’s life have ended this way? It was unthinkable.

          So many unanswered questions. This doesn’t happen to good parents, does it? Just lousy parents, right? Or was this horror Jake’s fault? Had he been just plain stubborn? Maybe the grip of substance abuse and escapism was too strong to resist? Had he suffered from a mental illness? Was he just plain bugged? Shouldn’t I have been able to save this precious person from a spiral of self-destruction? I had tried so many ways but nothing had helped – not the counselors or the psychologist, or the recovery programs, or medication. Years of frustration finally caused my kindness, patience, and understanding to give way to desperation, panic, and ultimatums.

        Read more of Suzanne’s moving story here

The new aging

Another birthday milestone was celebrated this past week-end. Mine. Looking over the past eleven months in terms of numerology, I was in a personal year 2, which means I began a new nine tragetory of change in 2011. A personal year 2 is a wait and see time, of small contributions rather than large ones, of delays, detours and stoppages. It does seem that 2012 has been stoppages and delays, since I have virtually stopped working on my eponymous memoir.  I just can’t muster up the enthusiasm.

Chris is in a personal year 4 of hard work, transitioning this coming January to a personal year 5, a year of major change, freedom, new friends and social activities. The good news is that I, too, will be transitioning to a more action packed year in 2013, and, according to the above link, “a good time to expand personal creative talents, particularly those related to the arts and verbal skills. Recognition in this regard is likely this year.” Maybe I’ll finally finish the memoir!

These predictions may sound as vague and open-ended as a daily horoscope, but I have come to rely a lot of numerology, almost as nature’s way of telling me to take a longer term view, to be thoughtful and patient. Change takes time. Change is continous. With mental health labels, we often let time be our enemy. Most of us don’t think in decades, we think in deadlines. If I’m not married by the time I’m 30, if I don’t have a career or even a job or degree by the time I’m such and such an age, etc.

Paying attention to numerology is also a needed dose of optimism that change will happen. I’ve been a hovering parent for the past ten years and I don’t want this role much longer. Chris is coming along nicely. He’s loving his musical theater work and has found a good group of diverse individuals who share a common passion for music and the stage. He has picked up a girlfriend (a chorus girl!) who shares these interests. It took him eight years to open up enough to seek out the companionship of others.

Change needs to happen for us both. I’ll be retiring at the end of 2013 and would like to see Chris by then having a toehold on a future path so that I can be free to enjoy wherever mine will take me.  Chris has plenty of volunteer work to his credit. He needs to start building credentials either through vocational training and/or further schooling . Will he be able to make the transition? Does he have the commitment to set a goal and carry out the hard work involved in getting there. This is a question mark. He’s still too concerned about MY welfare. How do you explain to someone to forget about me, be selfish for you? I’ve tried making that point many, many times since Chris was a child, and from what I can tell, it’s part of the territory of SZ to be so totally self-less. (In her memoir, author Elyn Saks writes that  she once told a therapist that she no longer wanted to see her (Karen) because her parents were upset that the therapist hadn’t figured this out and come up with a plan, and that it cost them too much money to continue to see her. “It never occurred to me back then (and if it occurred to Karen, she didn’t say so) that I was taking better care of my parents than I was of myself.”) Amen, Elyn.

I’ve told Chris in as many ways I can make the point, that his father and I aren’t feeble, we aren’t looking for his support, nor do we want it. Our job is to help him become independent, which is largely about his putting himself first, for once. He can also be of much greater service to others, I continue to point out, if he has some credentials behind him that can orchestrate bigger, more permanent changes in people’s lives than helping little old ladies across the street or a picking up litter on a daily basis.  

105 today! The men all died off years ago.

Afghanistan shrine treats mental illness

At Afghan shrine, ancient treatment for mental illness

By Kevin Sieff, Wednesday, October 24, 3:00 AMThe Washington Post JALALABAD, Afghanistan

— No one here knows the man whose left leg is shackled to the wall of cell No. 5. Last week, he finished tearing his mattress to shreds and then moved onto his clothes, ripping his shirt and pants off before falling asleep naked.

“He’s insane,” say the villagers who have come to gawk at him. “He doesn’t know whether he’s in this world or another.”

“He’s getting better!” said Mia Shafiq, the man responsible for his recovery and the one who shackled him to the wall of a shrine in this eastern Afghan city.

The man’s brothers drove him here from southern Kandahar province two weeks ago, drawn by the same belief that has attracted families from across Afghanistan for more than two centuries. Legend has it that those with mental disorders will be healed after spending 40 days in one of the shrine’s 16 tiny concrete cells. They live on a subsistence diet of bread, water and black pepper near the grave of a famous pir, or spiritual leader, named Mia Ali Sahib.

Every year, hundreds of Afghans bring mentally ill relatives here rather than to hospitals, rejecting a clinical approach to what many here see as a spiritual deficiency. The treatment meted out at the shrine and a handful of others like it nationwide might be archaic, but the symptoms are often a response to 21st-century warfare: 11 years of nighttime raids, assassinations and suicide bombings.

For over a decade, Western donors have helped train Afghan psychiatrists, who diagnose many of their patients as having an ailment with a distinctly modern acronym: PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Mental health departments in Afghanistan are plastered with posters detailing the disorder’s symptoms. Pharmacies are stocked with antipsychotic drugs.

But many of those suffering from the disorder never see doctors or pharmacists. Instead, they are taken on the long, unmarked dirt road, through a village of mud huts, that leads to an L-shaped agglomeration of cells.

Read the rest here