Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.
Today's article describes a path to improving existing mental healthcare. Many autistic people suffer various forms of mental illness. I personally have an anxiety disorder and a type of long-lasting, low grade depression called dysthymia.
Longtime readers will recall I have various gripes with the US healthcare system and its accessibility. But even when someone has insurance that covers mental healthcare, this paper points out quite clearly that the outcome is not always good.
The summary has an example of a person being prescribed a particular pill and the fallout when the office failed to follow up with the person. But as we found out a couple weeks back, this is pretty normal, especially when it comes to children.
As a reminder, the best and most effective response to "I seem to be suffering from mental illness" is "Okay, let's get you booked with a therapist." The typical response from the system seems to be, "Okay, here's some niche pills that might or might not help you." This study tells us that even if someone is prescribed appropriate medication, the chances of them receiving proper follow up care are minimal at best.
Considering how frustratingly uncertain the results of pharmacological interventions (ie: pills) are, it's simultaneously terrifying and infuriating to know this is how things are. Terrifying because the side effects of anti-depressants are many, varied, and sometimes crippling, and infuriating because of how systemic this utter failure is. It's not just scattered bad doctors' offices that doesn't care about their patients. It's basically every doctor's office, unless they are spectacularly on top of things.
There's a great deal of need for jobs during (and after) this pandemic, and a great deal of hand-wringing about how to provide those jobs. There are various ways to create those jobs, but in all honesty, some of them are more valuable than others. There is a clear and pressing need, nationwide (if not worldwide) for better healthcare and outcomes. So why not hire people to follow this research-proposed framework?
Particularly, why not hire autistic people and other people with disabilities? This kind of work can be done from home. You'd need database access and a work phone. And the ability to ask scripted questions and listen to the answers, perhaps even ask some followup questions. In short, this is not complicated work, and yet it would be highly valuable. Why not? We'd all be better for it.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
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