This is where the line becomes a little bit squiggly. I was reading an article where a man was forced to have electro convulsive therapy once a week apparently by the court system and it has me thinking about treatment that is forced upon patients from their doctors.
Electro Convulsive Therapy is also known as shock therapy and it has been around for decades. Basically what happens is the patient is put to sleep, giving some sort of muscle relaxant and then electricity goes between the two pads placed on the patients head. There is unilateral where both pads are on one side or there is bilateral where the pads are on opposite sides of the head. Electro Convulsive Therapy is used in cases of severe depression where medication has not been able to lift. For some people it is the best thing that was ever invented and for others it is a horror story from the start. I have undergone this procedure at two separate admissions for a total of five sessions when it was stopped due to a disorder where it took me forever to wake back up and I stopped breathing during the last session. ECT comes with a long list of potential risks everything from memory loss to broken bones to problems with the medication that goes with the procedure.
Now I volunteered and damn near begged for Electro Convulsive Therapy as at the time nothing was working and I was willing to try anything to get out of the funk that I was in at the time. Do I think that ECT should be forced on someone? 98% of the time the answer is no as a person should have full control over what happens to them especially with a procedure that carries a high risk. Of course with that there are going to be people who are in such a state that ECT may be the procedure to help them get over the hump and they may not be in a mental condition to accurately weigh the pros and cons.
Now I understand the problems with forced treatment when it concerns ECT but what about medication? There are a number of people that have to take their medication every day or else they are violating a court order which may have them sent to a mental facility or possibly a prison if they fail to comply. Medication comes with its own risk with everything from increased suicidal thoughts to blood disorders to obesity and the list goes on. When I was in the hospital and someone refused to take their medication the nurses responded with basically a threat “If you do not take your meds you will be moved to a higher security floor” or “If you do not take your meds you will have to remain in your room all day” and again the list goes on.
Back to the ECT article. The person who wrote it seemed surprised that the man would have the procedure done as an outpatient but this is actually pretty common. I know people who go for monthly treatments and have been doing so for quite sometime and a good number of them are able to go back to work a few hours after the session. The part of the article which I found odd was that this man was forced to go on a weekly basis and there did not seem to be any sort of review with a doctor to determine whether or not the treatments are still needed and the article did not go in to the reason on why the man was forced to start the treatments in the first place.
Forced mental health treatment is a slippery slope. On one side it is important to protect the rights of the patient but on the other side you need to keep someone in trouble safe. Doctors in emergency rooms deal with this on a constant basis where as a patients family is begging for help with their loved one but the person in need is saying everything is fine.
I know this post probably does not make a lot of sense and to be quite honest I really do not have an answer or a strong opinion on forced mental health treatment for i have been on both sides of the wall and I do not think there is an answer that will please both sides. Take care
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Finally someone who takes both sides of the situation into account. Personally, I think that there will always be a small group of patients that have to be forced into treatment not only for their own heath, but the health of those around them. However, there should be many checks and balences in play to prevent something like what happened in one flew over the cuckoo nest. For example, consultiations with multiple non affiliated doctors, the ablity to at any time seek a second optinion and so forth, as it can be a very dangerous thing if people have serious reations to the treatment.
This subject is definitely a slippery slope. Like you, I don’t think there’s an answer that will please both sides. I can see at least 3 sides anyway: respecting the patient’s rights, keeping the patient safe, and keeping the public safe. That makes for a very slippery slope indeed.
I am definitely against the idea of forcing people into treatment. On the other hand, I think there need to be more mechanisms and more strategies out there that people can use when things get bad. For instance, getting people to voluntarily sign over some power of attorney to someone they trust. Have them do it when they’re relatively stable, so that the person can help intervene when they are sick. There are many others. But I think when we get to the point of using actual physical force, we have probably missed many opportunities and tools along the way.
We should talk about all the things we can do without resorting to force and see what we’re left with.
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