http://www.bphope.com/Item.aspx?id=379
I would like to read about people with bipolar disorder and additional disabilities. For example, I am deaf and have bipolar 2. I am a workshop presenter for the deaf community. The barriers and struggles that they go through being deaf is enough, but to add bipolar to the plate is especially challenging.
Especially challenging I bet… Depending on the area, bilingual ability probably is a must, but I’ve yet to come across that many doctors that I would think to also know ASL (American Sign Language). Maybe hospitals at least have translators on staff? They don’t on Grey’s Anatomy…
According to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services.org, one in six Americans has a communication disorder. Even with stats like that I’ve personally come across less than half a dozen in my short lifetime. I have been fascinated with ASL since the 5thgrade when my school required that all students in my classes learn how to sign the alphabet. (I still can) In college I took a full course of it (so what if I barely passed—I have the abc’s down pat!)
The first deaf person I ever met was my college instructor, and while taking his course I happened up on a pair of deaf friends communicating in the back of the metro bus. I was so excited to actually sign to them that I knew a few words and phrases. Other than that the only other time I encountered a hearing impaired individual was once at work, someone called in using Type Talk, to place and item on hold. That was weird and really slow…This robotic machines notices me that the person on the phone is deaf and they will be communicating on their behalf. Its kind of jarring if you’ve never heard one before.
Do you know anyone that’s deaf? I can’t be the only one to have had so few encounters with this community. Returning to the topic at hand, there wasn’t a lot of information available on the mentally impaired and hearing challenged. A mini article courtesy of about.com (http://bipolar.about.com/od/socialissues/a/000425_deaf_2.htm) relates this to:
A research study of cultural and linguistic barriers to mental health evaluated the participants’ views of mental health institutions and practitioners. This study found that many deaf people have a fear of being incorrectly committed because they are unable to communicate with the staff. One participant is quoted as saying, “Even if I were just asking for directions at the information desk [of a psychiatric hospital], miscommunication could lead to my being committed mistakenly … I don’t want to go there, even for a visit!” (Steinberg, July 1998). This study further indicated that participants felt professionals erroneously consider a nominal level of communication to be adequate.
Furthermore, clinicians who have little or no experience working with the hearing-impaired should use extreme caution and seek second opinions when diagnosing the deaf. In addition, research and effort is needed to bridge the language barriers which now make it so difficult to communicate.
Onward to the more positive realm of things, in 2007 the Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health highlighted a few successful interactions and points of interest, including the following. One case review addressed the success found with the use of mobile phone text, as a liaison for patient monitoring; in conjunction with focus on signing amplitude/intensity, in aiding the diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
Follow the link here http://www.cpementalhealth.com/content/3/1/19 for a more in depth analysis explanation. This particular patient’s consult psychiatrist took into account lip and tongue movements as well as the kinds of attempts at speech.
This person was provided support and access to tertiary deaf mental health physicality. Not all deaf patients are. “As with all psychiatric disorders, the entire presentation and the change in the client’s presentation should be of diagnostic importance.”
Research indicates a growing amount of awareness towards the mental ailments amongst the deaf environment, due in part to an increase of in-patient admissions. A similar increase in evidential findings on how to approach and properly diagnosis has yet to be determined. Unfortunately these misdiagnosis are continuing to place those in need, on the wrong end of the treatment stick.
Another case of as the bipolar world turns…
–Posted by Eliza Barnett
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Filed under: Eliza Barnett, bi-polar
