as some of you may already know i work on an adolescent unit in a psych hospital. as with any job in psych it can get very frustrating... not to mention depressing. well the staff and i are dealing with a big problem right now. we have a male patient who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. he's 15. he has been seen by several psychiatrists, who all agree that he needs to be treated rather aggressively (medication). he can be assaultive, although he keeps to himself most of the time. he has to be watched like a hawk, because he likes to sneak in the shower room and annoy the other male patients, and he'll walk up and poke at his peers, which evokes a fight about 75% of the time. he has strange repetitive rituals, he will not touch door handles, or the drinking fountain... he refuses to take oral medications, because he is convinced that he's not mentally ill, and he doesn't need them, and that the meds. will cause terrible side effects. he demands ativan rather than cogentin for the "shaking" he experiences, despite the fact that i have read through the side effects of ativan with him, and told him that for the problem he's having, ativan isn't going to help as well as the cogentin. he refuses to bathe, and the other boys complain about it, so he has to be assisted, and usually the staff ends up as wet as him. he was on a schedule of prolixin dec. injections q 2 weeks which was the only way that he was actually getting any medication on a regular basis. (he would flat out refuse, or cheek the p.o. meds)
it is so sad to watch a boy drift away like this. you can see it in his eyes.
here's our problem. his mother refuses to believe that there's anything wrong with him. she is angry with everything that we have done, nothing seems good enough. she was angry that he was getting the prolixin dec. and i believe she told him he didn't need it. we can't do anything without a fight. we are treating her, as much as him.
don't get me wrong, i know if he were my son, i may be in denial...but i truly feel that we are doing a dis service to him by not treating him as prescribed. i wish for once she would let her guard down, and listen when we try to tell her that we are all on the same side, we all want what's best for him.... to get better.
any advice as to how to handle this situation??? any words of wisdom or ideas would be appreciated. thanks!
