Question

Your agency works primarily with schizophrenic clients. Given what we know about this illness, what components would need to be available in treatment to be most effective with this population?

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) Schizophrenic and paranoid schizophrenic patients generally have hallucinations, paranoia about people wanting to sabotage them, auditory hallucinations or even difficult pasts to deal with. The symptoms of their infirmaries certainly do not make things easier for them. Furthermore, they are not able to make decisions rationally as they suffer from paranoia. In such cases, it would be essential for an agency that handles them to be versatile in settling guardianship for the patients.

In other words, an agency would have to manage the paperwork, background checks and other issues that entail the assignment of a guardian. This guardian would be responsible for deciding what treatment of the doctors should be accepted or not. Since there is not properly conscious patient consenting to treatments, it is essential that these individuals have an assigned legal guardian.

Secondly, the agency should be able to assign good institutions that offer a range of electroconvulsive therapy, neuroleptics, vocational skills training, hospitalisation and psychotherapy for the patient’s recovery. The agency should be able to handle a wide range of services right from the time of diagnosis, until viable recovery. Furthermore, the agency should also be able to provide rehabilitation services whenever that patient is in the requirement of additional care for severe cases.

The agency should have assigned representatives for each client that would be familiar with the patient history and management. In this way, the patients and guardians would not have to interact with an unfamiliar representative each time they need a consultation. Also, a familiarity with the case would enable the handler to better prepare for situations with the patient and fulfill their requirements.