Alice*, a 34 year old female
The problem: Acute para-suicidal behaviour
The solution: Proper psychiatric assessment, diagnosis and treatment using the Mind Screen.
The outcome: Appropriate treatment with complete turn around in her behaviour & vastly improved quality of life.
Alice, a new patient on an SNRI was brought to the surgery as an emergency consultion, having just been rescued by her family as she tried to jump off a bridge in front of an oncomming commuter train. The family was refusing hospital treatment and was prepared to do whatever it took to manage her at their home.
It would have been easy to have assessed her with a K10, increased the dose of the SNRI and subsequently organise a psychologist, but I was unsure about her diagnosis and this made me realise that there was probably some other factor in operation here. I arranged for Alice to complete a Mind Screen session in the adjacent consultation room. I’m so glad I did because her self assessment raised the distinct possibility of bipolar disorder with various comorbidities. I was then able to spend time digging deeper into her history, uncovering a number of obvious bipolar type 2 symptoms and soon realised that this was in fact her primary psychiatric condition.
I could see the sense of relief on her face and that of her brother as I shared my diagnosis with them and hope was offered in the form of new treatment possibilities. She related that after years of seeing different doctors, no one had talked about bipolar disorder. She had tried various medications but nothing seemed to work.
We have now worked through the Mind Screen Treatment Plan together and Alice has markedly improved. She no longer suffers from frequent hypomania, her depression is under control, she has a steady partner and is planning marriage for the first time in her life. Her family is eternally grateful & I feel a real sense of professional satisfaction.
This young woman's life was saved and the turning point in her management was clinching the diagnosis by an efficient documentation of her clinical history using the Mind Screen assessment.
Dr Chris Mulroney
Melbourne, VIC
* Denotes name changed for privacy reasons.
