On January 24, 2013 Susannah Cahalan, author of “Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness,” presented at the Grand Rounds on Autoimmune Encephalitis at Duke School of Medicine. Highlighted below is the comment one psychiatrist gave after her presentation.
Susannah was the first person in NYU Medical Center’s history to be diagnosed with NMDAR encephalitis. Dr. Souhel Najjar, the neurologist who gave her the correct diagnosis, told her:
“It’s a death sentence when you’re still alive, Many are wasting away in a psych ward or a nursing home.” [1]
Click on this link to learn more about anti-NMDAR encephalitis.
from the Facebook Fan page of Friends of 12 year-old Ellen Whittington
♥Our trip to Duke yesterday went well. We did get to meet Susannah Cahalan, but only momentarily. She presented her book and did some reading. After which Ellen’s Neurologist Dr William Gallentine and Rheumatologist Dr. Heather Van Mater gave a presentation to both the medical staff and the psychiatry staff at Duke.♥The focus of the Grand Rounds was to emphasize how easy it is to overlook this disease if the right protocol is not established for diagnosis.♥The four families most recently treated at Duke for Auto-Immune Encephalitis were then introduced to the staff as examples of various stages of the disease.♥A lot of emphasis was put on early diagnosis of the disease. At the end of the meeting, they asked for questions and comments.♥One of the psychiatrists present, stood up and commented that his entire method of psychiatric diagnosis would forever be changed by the Grand Rounds Event.♥This is the broad goal of The Auto-Immune Encephalitis Alliance. We were VERY happy to be part of this event. We feel a very strong desire to make sure no other child is delayed treatment for this horrible disease. The presentation clearly showed early treatment brings more complete recovery. We will be having lunch tomorrow with 3 other affected families and Susannah Cahalan at the home of the head of psychiatry at Duke.♥Pray for a great day tomorrow.♥
NBC’S DATELINE: Dark Side of Serbian Mental Institutions Serbia’s horrific institutions a relic of the past.
Could the institutionalized be suffering from a treatable Autoimmune Encephalitis or other condition?
Are mental health advocates turning a blind eye towards underlying causes of psychosis?
These are questions I continue to consider.
And how about this documentary of under and missed diagnosie of B12 deficiency :
Dawn DelMonte
http://psychoticdisorders.wordpress.com/bmj-best-practice-assessment-of-psychosis/
Thanks Dawn! I’ve added it to the site I collect information on what causes psychosis.
The BMJ has a comprehensive list that I posted on this link. Their Best Practice Assessment of Psychosis guidelines should be mandatory for all medical and mental health professionals. If they are not following Best Practice, they their patients must be getting Worst Practice Assessment.
Take care,
Maria Mangicaro
Great minds think alike again, Maria? Just hours ago my sister gave me an (Irish) Sunday Independent article about Susannah Cahalan. I Googled and traced it back through the British Observer newspaper and the New York Post, which employed Susannah Cahalan.
What leaped out at me was Dr. Souhel Najjar’s suggestion that brain inflammation may underlie not just ‘psychosis’, but also ‘OCD’ and ‘depression’. An example of diagnostic creep, or could he be onto something? Both the the young woman and the girl in the video certainly had very obvious physical symptoms, not to my knowledge normally characteristic of ‘psychosis’, much less ‘OCD’ or ‘depression’.
Susannah Cahalan was diagnosed with several ‘mental illnesses’ and underwent a plethora of physical tests ($1m worth!), including repeated MRIs and CAT scans before Dr. Souhel Najjar, the last of the many neurologists she saw, discovered she had an autoimmune brain encephalitis and treated her successfully. Brain inflammation has been suspected as a cause of ‘mental illness by both ‘Alternative and Complementary’ enthusiasts, who suspect diet, and, on the other hand, our old friend E. Fuller Torrey and his Stanley Institute, who suspect infections carried by cats (felines, not brain scans!).
Relatives and close friends of mine suffer from ‘depression’ and I do wonder if this could benefit them or just be a distraction and further worry.
Thanks, Maria and Dawn. John