reducing aggression in psychotic patients

Bjo · Mar 6, 2005

That's hard to say given the individuality of each case. If the person is acutely psychotic, you may not want to encourage them to start beating up on a punching bag. They might not be able to back off from it! My experience with psychotic patients is that they come in to the hospital because they went off their medication. If they are truly psychotic, they probably have to have the medication. There are many other things you can do in addition to medication, but that will depend on the individual's personal circumstances and the degree of psychosis.

Psi · Mar 7, 2005

Hi all,
I am a nursing student from the Netherlands and am trying to find info on measures that reduce levels of agression/agitation in psychotic patients without meds. Specifically, does anyone know something about the effectiveness of physical exertion regarding reducing aggression/agitation, eg. punching a punching bag (I read this in Mary Townsends book on diagnoses).
Any help would be much appreciated, especially references to articles and research papers.
Manolo

You can't talk somebody out of psychosis. Time after time tree huggers have tried and failed to introduce models of care that don't involve medication. You can however provide a low stimulus and non-threatening environment, and ensure that patients are listened to in a supportive way, and that firm boundaries are in place so that the patients know exactly were they stand. This will go a long way to reducing incidents of violence, but not eliminate it completely.

In terms of your request for research take a look at this

http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/~ra917/citynurse/projplan.htm

As for the punchbag thing, its just not true, there's plenty of research to indicate that agressive behaviour leads to a measurable increase in testosterone levels in males, which will increase the likelihood of violence.