3-week, 7-session individualized program designed to educate and assist participants in actively controlling or eliminating mood symptoms.
As medical science continues to develop new medications for the treatment of depression, anxiety, mood swings, and obsessive-compulsive illnesses, the prescription for the most helpful medicine is becoming a more time-consuming, exact, and challenging task.
The primary care physician, psychiatrist, and therapist often work in relative isolation from one another. To ensure the best treatment for each patient, better communication and coordination in the process of specification of symptoms, diagnosis, coordination of medication and medication compliance is crucial.
It is not unusual for the patient to have difficulty identifying, distinguishing, and differentiating the various and fluctuating symptoms they are experiencing at any given time. Additionally, the patient is more often focused on the problematic events, relationships, and difficulties in their families and individual life, with no clear conceptualization of how their mood symptoms and life problems are related.
Thus, the process of specifying symptoms and diagnosing the affective illness remain disconnected for the patient, primary care physician, psychiatrist, and therapist.
The Affective Disorder Program addresses these challenges by educating the patient about their symptoms, clarifying concepts and terms used by the medical profession, and by reporting to the physician the objective rating scales taken by the patient. Thus, the now-educated patient, together with the physician prescribing the medication, and the therapist, can communicate in real time with shared objective information about the effectiveness of the medications being prescribed.
This seven-session program educates patients, spouses, and/or family members who are affected by these disorders. This is not a group psychotherapy experience, in that patients do not introduce themselves and do not discuss their individual problems or difficulties. It is completely anonymous.
The presenter uses discussions, slides and brief educational films to teach the concepts in a brief format. Objective rating scales for depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and bipolar illness are taken by each participant and integrated into a report for the primary care physician. Ongoing updated scales continue to assist patient and physician monitor the effectiveness of medications.