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Biomedical subjects

H R Lamb

Publications and source records attributed to H R Lamb.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

Staff burnout in work with long-term patients.

The seeds of staff burnout are planted when mental health professionals who work with long-term patients do not recognize that such patients vary greatly in their potential for rehabilitation. This situation leads to unrealistic expectations and frustrations for staff. The concept of normalization, if misapplied, can lead to the same result. Contributing to the frustration is administrative pressure on staff to produce impossible results. Staff's ambivalence about gratifying dependency needs of patients and uncertainty about their own needs and motivations also can lead to burnout.

Community Mental Health Services↗

Supplemental Security Income and the sick role.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) has given the psychiatrically disabled a dependable source of income and helped make it possible for them to live outside state hospitals. The change to SSI has had an important effect on delabeling and decreasing the stigma of receiving Aid to the Disabled. However, the secondary gain inherent in SSI may interfere with social and vocational rehabilitation efforts. The authors present recommendations aimed at making the SSI system more conducive to social integration and rehabilitation.

Adult↗

Schizophrenia through the eyes of families.

The authors contend that families of schizophrenics have received too little help from mental health professionals, even though in many cases families are the real primary care agents for long-term patients released from mental hospitals. They discuss some of the problems that occur in living with a long-term patient and describe mutual-support and advocacy groups that relatives have formed. They emphasize that mental health professionals can help families of schizophrenics by providing practical, realistic advice on how to deal with the illness, by offering empathy and support rather than placing blame, and by working to ensure that there are adequate treatment and rehabilitation services available.

Adult↗

The long-term patient in the era of community treatment.

Post hospital follow-up studies do not encompass the total population of long-term, psychiatrically disabled patients in the community, because a large proportion (in this study, 64%) have not had a recent hospitalization, either state or local. The authors identified a population of long-term, psychiatrically disabled patients in the community, all of whom carried functional psychotic diagnoses. Long-term disabled patients generally lead inactive lives, but in California seldom return to state hospitals. One third have been hospitalized locally within the past two years-younger patients much more than older patients. Almost half use private (Medicaid) outpatient services, but one fourth receive no mental health services at all. Less than a third live in board and care homes or cheap hotels; most live in nonsegregated, noninsitutional settings. The role of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in enhancing adaptation of the chronically disabled was impressive to the research team.

Adult↗

In defense of community mental health.

Initial enthusiasm for community mental health has given way to a barrage of criticism, musch of it deserved. Originated to deal with abysmal conditions in state hospitals, community mental health focused instead on primary prevention, political activism, and the mildly mentally ill. The authors propose a return to the original fundamentals, stressing that the highest priority be given to community treatment and rehabilitation of the severely mentally ill.

Aftercare↗

The carrott and the stick: inducing local programs to serve long-term patients.

Both financial and philosophical considerations have led to the dramatic shift in California of long-term patients from state hospitals to the community. Unfortunately local mental health programs frequently give low priority to the severely and chronically mentally ill. The state chose not only to engage in the wholesale discharge of patients from state hospitals but also to provide a number of financial inducements and penalties to motivate local programs to serve these patients. Although there have been many problems, local programs have developed a wide range of community treatment and rehabilitation programs for long-term patients.

California↗

An educational model for teaching living skills to long-term patients.

Establishing rehabilitation programs for long-term mental patients outside mental health settings can save mental health funds and further the patients' integration into the community, the author declares. He describes an approach that uses an educational model to teach patients the basic skills of everyday living. As "students," they enroll in a course taught by a credentialed teacher and sponsored by the adult education department of the local high school. Mental health professionals are used only for consultation, and the cost to the local mental health program is minimal. A key element in the course is having the students participate in planning the curriculum.

Activities of Daily Living↗