Half of Kids with Mental Illness Go Untreated

[HuckleB]

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/GeneralPsychiatry/17503?pfc=101&spc=244

"Half of children and younger adolescents meeting criteria for mental disorders had not seen a health professional for their symptoms in the past year, researchers found.

Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2001 to 2004 indicated that 13% of 8- to 15-year-olds had a recognized mental disorder, but only 51% of them had sought professional help, reported Kathleen Ries Merikangas, PhD, of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues.

These are the first estimates of the prevalence in children of mental disorders as defined in DSM-IV, the psychiatric profession's standard reference, the researchers wrote online in Pediatrics.

For many disorders, the NHANES data indicated lower prevalences than commonly reported, Merikangas and colleagues wrote. "However, they are quite comparable to findings from other U.S. studies that used similar diagnostic methods and criteria and are strikingly similar to those reported for a community survey conducted at the same time in Houston, Texas," the researchers added.

..."


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I know it's been studied before, and reported before, but this just reiterates how much we are failing to help many of those among us.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. I blame the parents

They are too often in denial. And when they wake up it's too late.

[Xithras]

6. Yep, I know a couple like that right now.

Their child was born premature and was diagnosed as being developmentally disabled at one. At four, his vocabulary is comparable to a two year old.

His parents refuse to accept it and claim that he's merely a "late bloomer". If you try to bring it up with them, they get very angry and refuse to discuss it, and they aren't shy about getting in your face about it either ("Are you saying that MY child is retarded? I'll beat your ass for saying that about my kid!") <--actual comment from the Dad to a friend, in my presence.

The parents are stupid and the kid is screwed. There isn't much we can do about it.

[tigereye]

19. it's unfortunate since some in-home speech services might catch him up

quickly. It's too bad that they feel there is a stigma. It's likely he will need Speech and Language therapy when he gets to school anyway.

[Xithras]

23. Oh no, they plan on homeschooling.

They tried to put him into a preschool program run by the local K-12, and they offered them a referral to a county program that would help to catch him up. They blew up and pulled him completely out of the pre-k program. When they tried to complain to the district, they were told that the kid would almost certainly be put on an IEP and put into special classes until he was caught up enough to be mainstreamed.

He's supposed to start school next spring, and the parents are apparently now saying that they're going to home school the kid.

Part of it, I think, is guilt. As I understand it, he was born about six weeks early with all of the symptoms of FAS. Given the fact that I've never seen the mother without a drink in her hand, it's a plausible explanation.

If they admit that he has a disability, she'll have to face up to the fact that she did that to him. I think the denial is more about protecting themselves than about any societal pressure.

Legally, there is little that can be done.

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. We had friends like that too

It was incredibly sad watching their child grow up and end up at age 25 in psychiatric care for issues that should have been dealt with at birth and during childhood.

[Quantess]

34. That isn't a mental illness. It's a speech-language disorder.

I hope the child is getting speech-language treatment from a speech pathologist. The earlier the intervention, the better the prognosis.

But anyway, I believe this article is about mental health, not speech development.

[proud2BlibKansan]

38. But he's also developmentally disabled

That means mentally retarded. Not a mental illness, but sounds like the parents are in denial.

[Xithras]

42. The child is developmentally disabled.

And it's an across the board disability. I simply gave speech as an example. The kid was born 6 weeks early with FAS.

I didn't think it was necessary to give a full run-down of his impairments. The list is quite long.

[EFerrari]

14. Stressed out parents in a more or less hostile environment?

Maybe some are in denial but my experience is they just try to keep their heads up as best as they can.

And, for that matter, denial is a mechanism that allows you to keep functioning when there is too much stress on your system. :(

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. I hate to disagree with you my friend

But I must. I work with many kids who are desperately in need of mental health services but their parents refuse to get them help. Yes some are overwhelmed but they are the easy ones. The overwhelmed parents want help. The parents in denial refuse help. And there are far more of them in denial. At least that's been my experience.

Another sad reality is we generally can find services in the community for these kids. Even in our screwed up health care system we do have access to mental health services for children. But you need to convice a parent to take their child for help first.

[tigereye]

20. here is PA there are a lot of mental health services for kids

but the kids in juvenile justice facilities with serious mental health issues are often the ones who fall through the cracks.

[EFerrari]

21. You know much more about that group than I do.

:)

[undeterred]

2. Lack of access to health care or lack of understanding?

There is still a lot of ignorance regarding mental health issues. I know many people who were depressed as children but never received treatment.

[HuckleB]

3. I'd say it's "all of the above" and more.

[Better Today]

4. And half the kids being treated either no need treatment or are being overtreated.

Health care in USA sucks all around.

[HuckleB]

5. I do see some kids in treatment who don't need it, and who may "overtreated."

However, unless you have research to back up the hyperbole, I'm not buying your claim of half...

[Better Today]

8. Trust whom you will. I respond simply from personal awareness.

[HuckleB]

24. "Personal awareness?"

So you're in the office of health care professional in the country for every appointment in order to make such a judgment?

:shrug:

[LeftHander]

16. Right! there was a article today on poor kids on more psyc drugs...

[ElboRuum]

7. Just not buying this...

"13% of 8- to 15-year-olds had a recognized mental disorder"

Really, more than one in ten?

Sorry, I think we've all been led down the primrose path on this one, specifically given the sketchiness of what actually constitutes a "mental illness" and what are the normal parameters of mental development.

[Better Today]

9. Another very good point. Over-diagnosis may well be influencing the

reports statistics.

[hayu_lol]

10. Many children between the ages of 2 to 4...

are having hearing problems. That slows their speech development.

[HuckleB]

27. That statement doesn't mesh with the study, however.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. I work with kids; I believe it

[ElboRuum]

25. Well, don't just leave that hanging out there...

Why do you believe it?

[proud2BlibKansan]

30. Because I see these kids every day

I teach special ed. Every year I have several students who are struggling with various mental illnesses and their parents refuse to face reality and get them help. I'm not talking about hyper kids who may or may not be ADHD. I'm talking about kids who want to kill themselves, kids who are violent, kids who hear voices and other extreme behaviors that are telltale signs of serious mental illnesses. And 99% of them have parents who just refuse to get help for their child.

It really is much more prevalent than most people realize.

[Juche]

36. Sadly, it is

I had psychosis as a teenager, and a variety of positive symptoms like delusions and thought disorders. Positive symptoms respond extremely well to antipsychotics and would've made my life 80% easier (I thought the delusions were real and did tons of embarrassing things), but even though my dad is a pharmacist and has gotten prescriptions with one phone call to a doctor, I never got any. For all the hatred of psych meds I sometimes see, I would've loved to have gotten competent medical help when I was 17.

Sucks. I'm always going to be damaged in some way because of that event. Honestly, even after you pull your life together after a mental illness, there is that reflection where you realize nobody helped you when you needed it and a deep feeling of abandonment, insecurity and defectiveness that comes from feeling let down that you have to find a healthy way to deal with. People can't expect teenagers with severe neurological disorders to run their own treatment regimens.

Its the stigma. I couldn't even admit to myself what had happened until years later. Fighting mental illness and promoting mental health is a generational thing, its not going to be fixed next year. If mental illness were GLBT rights, we'd still be in the 1970s. If I'm lucky, maybe by 2030 attitudes towards mental illness will almost be palatable. But its going to take tons of work.

Up to 25% of prisoners are severely mentally ill. Most/many mentally ill are not being treated. Over 50%+ of chronically homeless are mentally ill and/or substance abusers. Poverty and unemployment rates for the mentally ill are far higher, I believe even after you adjust for treatment and work capacity. The mentally ill are also far more likely to be victims of violent crimes.

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/40/17/16.full

Victimization rates vary with the type of violent crime, said the researchers. People with mental illness were eight times more likely to be robbed, 15 times more likely to be assaulted, and 23 times more likely to be raped than was the general population. Theft of property from persons, rare in the general population at 0.2 percent, happens to 21 percent of mentally ill persons, or 140 times as often. Even theft of minor items from victims can increase their anxiety and worsen psychiatric symptoms, the researchers said.



Its a miserable situation where the mentally ill are at much higher risk of being crime victims, being arrested, being homeless, being poor. And honestly, I don't really blame the deniers because I can understand why people want to deny something so horrible. But its a vicious cycle. The more people deny this problem, the worse it gets (because we aren't dealing with it competently). The worse it gets, the more people deny it.

What sucks is that mental illnesses are fairly treatable and people can lead lives with far less pain and far more autonomy. Not perfectly or anything, but in between medications, off label medications, alternative therapies and psychosocial rehab things can get a lot better for most people. Plus new advances are coming out all the time.

Mental illness and sexual abuse are probably the 2 most destructive, insidious problems facing humans in wealthy countries. And alot of the problems come from the denial and refusal to deal with the problems competently. If I go my whole life w/o helping to rectify this issue, my life will be wasted. No matter how superficially successful I am in other areas. I'm 30, and with today's technology should live until the 2060s (probably longer with biological advances). I want the world I die in in the 2070s to be one where the mentally ill are not treated the way I was in the 1990s.

[tigereye]

22. that's higher than the stats I was looking at a few months ago -

rather alarming. I do agree that there is more of a tendency to label younger children than in the past. (I work in the field and that worries me at times.) However, kids who get early help tend to do better in school in the long run, and may be more likely to avoid more serious MH issues in the future.


Usually the criteria they use for inclusion are rather strict, though, at least in my experience...

[ElboRuum]

29. Well, I guess that's the point I'm trying to make.

13 children out of 100 doesn't seem like "strict" to me. The only thing I can think of that would amount to that quantity is a narrowing of the definition of "normal mental development" to allow the inclusion of borderline cases. I'm not saying that's true, or that even if it is that it's necessarily a bad thing (although I DO get suspicious any time a new excuse to medicate is offered up), all I'm saying that 13 in 100 "legitimate" cases of mental illness seems exorbitant and as such, suspect.

[HuckleB]

35. The article noted that the study's prevalence was lower than typically noted.

An example:

http://www.incrisis.org/Articles/PrevalenceMHProblems.htm

[county worker]

11. I'm late to this but I got the snacks in time I think.

:popcorn:

My thoughts on the matter are these: If you feel you want to look into professional help for possible mental illness for yourself or any of your loved ones, please do not let anecdotal information keep you from investigating it.

I can't make anyones mind up on the matter but I feel that those who on this board are so quick to dismiss mental illness and treatment whether with meds or other means are doing no one any good.

So many people lead diminished lives because of the stigma of mental illness and the stigma of seeking treatment or of being found out that you are a patient.

Screw the naysayers and do what you feel is right for yourself and your family.

[Echo In Light]

12. And then grow up, flocking to middle management positions, as to wield power over others

Ha ... sorry, had to be said

[Sabriel]

15. We sought mental health help...until the deductible ran out

It was only $1000, which was 2.5 sessions. After that, $400 a pop.

[HuckleB]

31. That is a huge part of the problem, IMO.

What kind of treatment was going for $400 a session?

[proud2BlibKansan]

39. That's not untypical

Treatment for autism is incredibly expensive - upwards of $500 an hour. If mental health treatment includes any kind of rehab, $400 an hour is not at all unusual.

[Sabriel]

40. Without saying too much...

It was for a psychiatrist who specializes in autism spectrum and violence issues.

[Motown_Johnny]

17. Well, this explains how Shrub got elected

Sorry, in bad taste but I couldn't resist

[Echo In Light]

28. "Elected" gov of TX - that's the only official title he actually "won."

[proud2BlibKansan]

32. Shrub was one of these kids

Blowing up frogs and some of the other shit he pulled as a child is just not normal. He's been disturbed for most of his life. And I suppose his mom didn't want to worry her pretty little head about it.

[Odin2005]

33. lack of access to healthcare, as well as ignorance about mental disorders.

:(

[HuckleB]

37. To start it off...

[dysfunctional press]

41. ...and wind up as senate democrats.

[asdjrocky]

43. And half of them end up posting at DU as adults. nt