Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Psychiatric Hospitals

Psychiatric Hospitals

Psychiatric Hospitals (or mental hospitals) are organized mental health institutions where patients with varying degrees of mental disorders are cared for. The goals of mental hospitals may be different depending on the institution some specalize in the short term care until a patient gets better. Others will take care of patients with very sever conditions for the patient's entire life.
Modern Psychiatric Hospitals are the descendants of lunatic asylums and the shift from one to another has a close correlation with the advent of modern psychiatry. In medevil times there were a number of places devoted to care for the clinically insane. These such places date back to as early as 490 in Jerusalem, and include such famous sites as Htel-Dieu in persia or The Priory of Saint Mary of Bethlehem in England established in 1247 and now known a crossed the world as Bethlem Royal Hospital. Eastern State Hospital was the first American Mental hospital to open it's doors in 1773 in Virgina. In Europe in 1793 Phillipe Pinel was the first to come up with a more humane and moral way of treating mental patients as opposed to old methods. In the last century Josheph Devlin of the house of Commons in Ireland said that the only Irish institutions that are conducted properly are mad houses. Devlin's statement was inspired by the fact that Ireland was the first to use what we consider "modern" methods of treatments including drug treatment and physical therapy. Today there is a Psychiatric Hospital on every continent.
The modern incarnation of the mental hospital comes in several different versions each of which have different focus and help different types of individuals. Crisis stabalization rooms function as ER rooms for mental patients in hospitals. Open units are Psychiatric Hospitals that are less secure than others and their goal is to make life as normal for patients as they possibly can. Medium care unites are very short term care facilities that are usually only used for a few weeks at a time. Long term care units and federal units are places where sever patients who are not able to function in society are taken care. Often times patients in long term care are voluntary but when a person proves danterous to themself or others, they can be forced to reside in Psychiatric care.
Mental care facilities have come a long way from the towers and torture units of the old world. Today patients are cared for by the top doctors of their field. Though Psychiatric is among the newest forms of medicine and we're bound to found out more and more ways the help those afflicted by mental conditions.

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