The HOME study - Michael Sharpe s CBT for the elderly

The HOME Study

https://oxfordpsychologicalmedicine.org/research/thehomestudy/

Research assistant Job being advertised
"We are looking for two highly motivated and enthusiastic research nurses / research assistants to join the Oxford Psychological Medicine team. You will work with clinicians and researchers on The HOME Study, a major NIHR funded multicentre clinical trial led by Professor Michael Sharpe and Dr Jane Walker."
http://jobs.ouh.nhs.uk/job/UK/Oxfor...edicine/Psychological_Medicine-v929296?basic=

 

I (almost) can't believe he's actually going there - "the elderly cost too much"

And dementia is a cognitive symptom usually caused by a neurological disease. It's not a psychological problem, and it can't be fixed with a dose of the fuck-off variety of CBT.

It's also worrisome that they're targeting people hospitalized for biomedical reasons

 

Actually, in geriatrics confusion, depression and anxiety are often caused by physical disease.

I have met people who have been convinced that an elderly relative is developing dementia and been really alarmed, only to discover that it was a urinary tract infection all along.

 

Hospitalization can also cause confusion, that is interpreted by the hospital staff as dementia. When the family try to tell the staff that the patient does not have dementia, they are seen as being in denial and the patient is given anti-psychotic drugs.

 

It all makes sense in twisted and evil way: they're targeting those who cannot fight back.

 

Ah, the good old chemical cosh....sickening.

 

£5 million or so will save billions when they deliver this shit instead of real treatments and investments.

It will also make the bottom line look great for the big private sell off of healthcare so many lobbyists are desperate to see.

Always got to cook the books a bit before a sell out!

 

Indeed. When I was in hospital last year I was given a sleep drug that I reacted badly to, causing intense hallucinations, severe amnesia and confusion. Because I had ME, a lot of the staff didn't believe that I had no memory or awareness of things that were happening (just as they didn't believe in my physical limitations), and thought my confusion was a mental health issue related to the ME.

Eventually I figured out myself what the cause of the problem was, and told the hospital, but presumably my drug chart wasn't updated, because the temp agency staff still tried to give me the drug every night. In fact there were multiple, repeated errors in the meds I was given.

I queried my meds so many times that in the end the night staff were told to just give me what I said I was supposed to have. It really made me wonder what was happening with the drugs being given to my elderly room mates, both over 90 years old, who just took whatever they were given.

I can just imagine people being offered CBT to 'treat' iatrogenic confusion, especially older PwME.

 

Dementia is a physical problem, not a psychological problem :



How is any form of psychological treatment going to slow down or reverse the destruction of brain tissue?

And how can people with brains like swiss cheese live independently and manage to cook and feed themselves, clean themselves and their clothes, keep their houses/flats clean, and manage their finances?

If they are considered to be an "expensive nuisance" in hospitals as is implied in the description of this study and they don't have anyone to care for them, what do psychiatrists want done with them?

I find it astonishing that anyone could have approved this study - it just looks like a huge waste of money, and is guaranteed to make people's last years on the planet more miserable than they might otherwise have been.

 

It's scary things haven't improved much since the 60s then.

My dad was involved in an industrial accident and hospitalized. A nurse tried to bully him into an injection and was quite abusive when he wouldn't let her inject him until she told him what was in the syringe.

Just as well. She finally told him it was a syringeful of penicillin, despite a big red sticker on his chart announcing he was allergic to it. She could have killed him.

But no - it was him being difficult. It is frighteningly easy to imagine an elderly person being dismissed as being a bit senile in a similar situation.

 

Medical error is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US.

I don't imagine its much different in Canada, the UK, Europe...

 

This is even more bizarre than anything we have discussed previously. I do not have time to think about it at present but it looks unethical. Hopefully I will remember to return to it tomorrow or late in the week.

 

For those with no family to advocate for them this will be another kafkaesque nightmare. The vulnerable as a profit vehicle.
If CBT does not cut it then what?
Just look at tonight's dispatches programme - undercover in a Priory mental health unit and weep.

 

yep it's called Delirium. I experienced it myself in the hospital one time.

 

So stay-home-and-die therapy "works"? But on the plus side, most of the dinosaurs pushing these interventions are old enough to soon be a victim of any success that they have in selling these treatments.

 

Based on the description of the study under discussion, "medical error" is going to become a lot more common in order to save money. But the person to be blamed will be the patient themselves because, after all, their problems were all in their heads.