Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Culturally Guided Family Therapy for Schizophrenia Helps Individual and Caregivers

That is the title of this article I am reviewing today. "Schizophrenia is a difficult mental illness that affects about one percent of the population in the United States. The condition is chronic, severe, and disabling often preventing an individual from living independently.  Approximately 60 percent of those suffering from this condition live with a relative. Despite the fact that family interventions have shown to significantly improve outcomes for individuals with schizophrenia, only about seven percent of patients with this illness receive any family therapy.  To address this void, a new culturally-informed treatment strategy focused on caregivers of people with schizophrenia as well as the individual. The protocol utilizes the cultural believes, values, and behaviors of caregivers to help them cope with the stress of caring for a loved one with schizophrenia.  'We wanted to develop a treatment intervention that taps into cultural beliefs and values that we hypothesized would make the treatment more engaging and relatable to many ethnic minorities that do not necessarily embrace the current mental health care system, said Amy Weisman de Mamani, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at the University of Miami.  'We hoped to develop a treatment that was not only aimed at benefiting patients, but explicitly focused on reducing caregiver distress as well.'"It is a good turnabout from years ago and needed.  When I first was incarcerated at the state hospital they did not like that all I did when I had the chance was talk to my family on the phone.  The doctor their asked my mom to let me go sink or swim on my own.  The did not promote family.
The article goes on to say: "Since the degree of perceived burden and emotions that we experience are tied to one’s cultural view of the world, the project examined the effect of adding culturally based segments to an already established family focused treatment for schizophrenia. For the study, participants undertook a 15-week family-focused, culturally-informed treatment for schizophrenia (CIT-S). The researchers incorporated modules on spirituality, or religion and family collectivism to already established psychoeducational and communication modules.  Sixty percent of the participants were Hispanic, 28 percent Caucasian, eight percent African American, and nearly four percent identified as “Other.” The researchers believe that the treatment is not specific to particular group, but rather may be helpful to all ethnic, racial, and cultural groups.  Study results show that the new treatment markedly reduces caregiver burden, shame, and guilt, implying an improvement in the quality of life for caregivers and patients alike.  The research appears in the journal Psychotherapy of the American Psychological Association." When you have problems sometimes only family can help you solve it. I know it was important very much when I first came back to Denver from Pueblo. If it was not for my brother I would not have found housing I was looking wrong.
The article ends: "'Caring for a patient with severe mental illness can have adverse consequences for the caregiver and ultimately for the patient,' said co-author of the study Giulia Suro, Ph.D.
'These include reduced opportunities to earn an income, socialize, and take care of one’s own personal needs.' The results show that CIT-S and the psychoeducation-only family intervention were equally and highly effective in reducing shame, although CIT-S markedly outperformed family psychoeducation in reducing caregivers’ burden and guilt. In the spirituality module, the study aimed at helping families’ access beliefs and practices that could help cope with the illness, such as prayer, meditation, volunteerism, and attending religious services. Family members that did not subscribe to any particular religious practice or belief participated in parallel exercises that didn’t specifically reference “God” or “religion.” In the family collectivism module, the study assessed and encouraged the ability of family members to develop the perspective that they are part of a unified team working towards common goals. The study is a follow-up of a study in which the authors shared the first findings about the effect of the CIT-S on patient’s psychiatric symptoms, showing that CIT-S is better at reducing patients’ psychiatric symptoms, than the psychoeducation-only intervention." Well it seems so long ago that I was out and meditation was important.  Also talking to my mom about college since she had went years ago. It helped even though I had different problems happening it helped me see I could finish and be successful.

3 comments:

  1. Hearing voices is a common symptom of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Voices can be critical or they can be complementary and many people may be able to find ways to live with them. It's difficult to explain what it is like to hear voices, particularly if you've never heard voices your self
    that was the kind of problem my son once face,but now he is living a normal life and am very happy that he is now going to school.I got the medication from Dr Benard you can also get it from him by contacting him on benardleo13@gmail.com

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  2. I decided to share this to help someone out there who is still held with schizophrenia.
    My son suffered from chronic schizophrenia for 18 years and we traveled round the world from one hospital to another neurologist and spent thousands of dollars and even got scammed in this process of seeking a cure and the problem still persisted. He acted weird and aggressive and this was so scary. All thanks to Dr Joseph who was able to use his medicine to cure him permanently. He is one of the Honest men out there. If you want to contact him on how to get his medicine or for info just reach him directly on josephalberteo@gmail.com Thanks admin.

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  3. Rose Weel is my name, I live in USA. I want to say to the whole world how my husband was cured of his Alzheimer’s disease. Brothers and Sisters, my husband is 78 years old. He is a retired US Army. He fought so many wars, and had encounter with so many dangerous diseases. Before he embarked on his last peace mission to Iraq they were administered injections that will enable them carry out their duties effectively. So they went to the battle field where he lost so many of his colleagues and also he was shot on his throat but bullets don’t have much effect on him. So after the battle he survived it and returned back to USA off course he was rewarded heavily by the government, and that lead to his retirement. But after his retirement, he began to behave funny like forgetting all he did in the past, and sometimes don’t recognize me his wife quickly. I took him to Military hospital, and the doctor said some king of liquid in his body is causing him so many reactions, and this is affecting his brain to cut the long story short, after much diagnoses using EEG, and also the test of PROTEIN 14-3-3 all pointing out to the fact that his brain has malfunction. So he was giving medicines but his condition was still becoming worse even while taking the medicines administered. So we went back to the military hospital, and he was finally diagnosed of Alzheimer’s disease and this the doctor said have no cure. So his conditions began to get worst by the day. I cried out for help, but the government only gave us financial support. I all the time surf the web looking for possible cure until I ran into a blog where a man named James Watt gave testimony on how his cousin was cured of CJD by an herbal doctor called Doctor Uwadia Amenifo. In his testimony he imputed the contact detail of the herbalist. So I quickly copied out the contact details of Uwadia, and I contacted him immediately and explained to him what my husband is going through. He encouraged me and promised me that surly he will cure my husband, so after all necessary arrangement was made; he prepared the herbal medicine, and shipped it to me in USA, so I followed his instructions, and gave the medicine to my husband. Behold just like a magic in my eyes my husband was responding positively to the medicine and in just less than 3 weeks I started giving him the medicine, he was very okay, and in less than 7 weeks my husband was totally curd, and as I speak to you now my husband is totally cured, and he is now very okay, and in good health. So please all here shall help me say a big thanks to Doctor Uwadia Amenifo for helping me cure my husband of his Alzheimer’s disease. Please if you need Doctor Uwadia’s contact details, here is it. Email (doctoruwadiaamenifo@gmail.com) and his number is (+2349052015874). God bless all.

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