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Biomedical subjects

H E Jacobs

Publications and source records attributed to H E Jacobs.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

The job-finding module: training skills for seeking competitive community employment.

The opportunity to return to work is often the culmination of extensive and collaborative efforts by clients, psychiatrists, and allied mental health and rehabilitation practitioners. Successful vocational placement and tenure is a victory not only for each individual client but also for the comprehensive set of services and supports established to foster this self-determination. Much as a chain is only as strong as its links, successful job placement must be viewed as but one link in a comprehensive rehabilitation program. Our research in competitive community employment placement over the past decade has resulted in the development of the Job Finding Module, as our contribution to one link of this evolving chain of necessary treatment and rehabilitation services for the seriously mentally ill.

Aspirations, Psychological↗
PubMed1992

Correlations between psychiatric disabilities and vocational outcome.

Eighty-nine subjects were recruited from inpatient and community psychiatric treatment programs in the Los Angeles area to participate in the Brentwood Job Finding Club. They were trained in job-seeking skills and were given logistical support during their job search. Thirty-six percent either obtained a job or entered a job training program. Persons with good work histories, good job interviewing skills, and nonpsychotic diagnoses were more likely to find employment. Persons with psychotic diagnoses and poor work histories and those receiving Supplemental Security Income were the least successful.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1990

Evaluating the capacity to work of the mentally ill.

This study explored the relationship between psychiatric symptomatology and the functional capacity to work. Subjects were diagnosed using DSM-III criteria and were grouped into categories of psychotic or nonpsychotic, and disabled or nondisabled, in regard to adjudication for mental impairment from the Social Security Administration (SSA). There were significant relationships between disability status and work capacity, in the direction of better performance for the nondisabled subjects. This finding reflected concordance between the evaluation procedure used in the study and the SSA's disability determination process. There was considerable overlap in work performance among subjects, however, suggesting that a functional assessment of work capacity might improve disability determination in certain cases. Results suggested that these work assessments might be as short as one or two days.

Disability Evaluation↗
PubMed1988

The Los Angeles Head Injury Survey: procedures and initial findings.

The project was designed to identify the long-term needs of persons with severe, traumatic head injuries by assessing discrete functional skills one to six years posttrauma. Approximately 1,700 families of persons with traumatic head injury were contacted in the metropolitan Los Angeles area. Of these, 310 families volunteered for the project, and 142 were randomly selected to participate in in-depth interviews. An instrument containing over 700 questions relating to the patient's ability to engage in productive and self-sufficient living skills was developed after consultation with numerous programs, professionals, families, and patients. Results indicated a broad spectrum of deficits and needs in survivors. No one course of recovery was noted for individual survivors, and residual deficits were noted for at least some portion of the surveyed population across every topic that was covered. Most survivors lived with their families, did not work or attend school, and were dependent upon others for skills, finances, and services outside the home. Due to a lack of available programs, families most frequently assumed the major responsibility for the survivor's long-term care despite no training in this area. Most families reported that the traumatic episode continued to have a variety of adverse effects on the family years after the injury.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1987

Contingency management of food misbehavior in a psychiatric patient with diabetes.

A contingency management procedure was instituted with a hospitalized 52-year-old male psychiatric patient to alter behavior associated with an exacerbated diabetic condition. A ten-day baseline indicated consistently elevated urine sugar levels and that the patient frequently violated his prescribed low sugar diet by stealing, trading and hoarding high sugar foods. Beginning in baseline, the patient was instructed to measure his urine sugar levels and post the results on a chart next to his bed. During two of the intervention procedures used in the additive design, the patient could earn coupon booklets from the hospital commissary if his daily average urine sugar levels were less than a set criterion. Two such criteria were employed before the reinforcement contingencies were faded. By the end of the intervention, urine sugar levels were under control and follow-up measures six months post-treatment indicated durable treatment effects.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed1986

Training skills in the psychiatrically disabled: learning coping and competence.

Social skills training methods represent a major strategy for psychiatric rehabilitation. Building skills in patients with schizophrenic and other major mental disorders is based on the assumption that coping and competence can override stress and vulnerability in reducing relapses and improving psychosocial functioning. For maximum efficiency, skills training needs to incorporate procedures and principles of human learning and information processing. Several models for skills training have been designed and evaluated, each of which has proved to be effective in raising the social competence of chronic mental patients. The "basic" model involves role playing by the patient and modeling, prompting, feedback, and reinforcement by the therapist. A "problem-solving" model of training provides general strategies for dealing with a wide variety of social situations. This model uses role playing to enhance behavioral performance but also highlights the patient's abilities to perceive and process incoming social messages and meanings. It is essential that social skills training be imbedded in a comprehensive program of rehabilitation that features continuity of care, supportive community services, therapeutic relationships, and judicious prescription of psychotropic drugs.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1986

Behavior management of aggressive sequela after Reye's syndrome.

This study describes the use of behavior management procedures to reduce the occurrence of severe behavioral sequela in a 14-year-old, post-Reye's syndrome male. Prior to intervention the client exhibited severe self-injurious, hyperaggressive, and food refusal behaviors that precluded any opportunities for rehabilitation, placed him at severe medical risk, and made him a candidate for institutional placement. With contingent restraint, in vivo desensitization, and reinforcement contingencies it was possible to control these behaviors and begin intensive rehabilitation. Subsequently, the client returned to his family and community day school for the severely handicapped where he remains five years later.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Development and analysis of a community-based resource recovery program.

Five studies were conducted over a 10-month period to determine the effectiveness of specific procedures in encouraging recycling among residential neighborhoods. Results indicated that: (a) initial levels of participation in neighborhoods were frequently related to housing values; (b) weekly recycling pick-ups that coincided with garbage collection days resulted in higher levels of participation than pick-ups that occurred at other times; (c) notifying homes about the recycling program through distributed door-to-door brochures was more effective than soliciting participation through newspaper ads; (d) distributing containers to help residents separate recyclable from nonrecyclable material proved to be an effective procedure, especially when combined with frequent prompting (prompting alone did not have much effect); and (e) procedures that facilitated the greatest levels of participation were not always cost-effective. The subsequent combination of these procedures into a package program resulted in high levels of neighborhood participation that were cost-effective and maintained over a 6-month period.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1982

Multiple incentives in encouraging car pool formation on a university campus.

The effects of a combined token economy and reserved parking program were evaluated as a means of increasing car pooling among students on a university campus. Following a baseline period, students in two experimental parking lots were notified of the availability of reserved parking and coupons redeemable for 25 cents in merchandise for each occupant of automobiles containing two or more people. Two control lots also were monitored for a comparison of treatment effects. Results indicated variable increases in car pooling in the two experimental lots and no increase in the control lots. Removal of the 25-cent coupons from one treatment lot (reserved parking only) did not adversely affect rates of car pooling. An analysis of individual automobile occupancy rates among car poolers indicated distinct patterns of car pooling and underscored the importance of individual subject data analysis in the present situation. A cost-benefit analysis indicated that even moderately effective car pool programs can be cost-effective on both a public and personal level.

Journal Article↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Yes, behaviour analysis can help, but do you know how to harness it?

Behaviour analysis procedures are gaining increasing acceptance as a viable form of treatment in traumatic head injury rehabilitation. This is based in part on the variety of sequelae that persons who have experienced a traumatic brain injury present, and the ability of behavioural procedures to address some of these issues. A second role for behaviour analysis is based on the techniques of learning and functional skill development which correlate well with the goals of traumatic brain injury rehabilitation. Over the decades a number of effective learning procedures have been developed by behaviour analysts to help a variety of people with different capacities of learning develop new skills. A third role for behaviour analysis in rehabilitation is its emphasis on the use of functional measures when determining change and treatment outcome. In this manner treatment procedures and goals can be directly measured, allowing for precise management of intervention strategies. Ideally, this can help make treatment outcome more clinically efficient and cost-effective. Along with these promises come some limitations. As with any tool, behaviour analysis procedures are not all-encompassing and by themselves do not constitute proper rehabilitation. A behaviour analyst's perspective does not, and was never designed to, 'describe the world' or account for the entirety of human behaviour. Behaviour analysis represents a template for documenting and working with selected forms of human activity. Unfortunately it is frequently a misunderstood and often incorrectly applied technology. The purpose of this paper is to provide some insight into this field's development of some of the basic principles of behaviour analysis.

Behavior Therapy↗