|
Psychiatry and Behavioral Services
Clinical Services List
Half of all Americans will
experience a mental illness during their lifetimes. Mental or emotional
problems affect every aspect of life. If you become overwhelmed, or cannot
function day to day, or become dangerous to yourself or those around you, it
may be helpful to seek inpatient care. Cayuga Medical Center has
two Behavioral Services units, one for adults over the age of 18 years, and one
for adolescents between 13 and 17. We provide individualized care in a warm,
supportive environment. We’re here to help you understand the problems
you have been experiencing and to work with you to make your life more
manageable. Our team of professional
caregivers will do a thorough evaluation to help determine what is causing your
distress and how we can best help you. We will check carefully for any
underlying medical illness or biochemical origins to your symptoms. We will
then work with you, your family, and other health-care professionals to develop
a course of treatment that is right for you. To learn more about our
Behavioral Services program, just click on the links
below. -
● Admission to Behavioral
Services -
● What to expect -
● Going home -
● Confidentiality Admission
to Behavioral Services Admission to both the
adult and adolescent units typically occurs when an individual requires a level
of care that is not available through community outpatient services. We accept
admissions to Behavioral Services 24 hours a day. Referrals may be made by
physicians, psychologists, social workers, mental-health professionals,
social-service agencies, family members, or friends. An entire team of doctors,
psychologists, psychiatric nurses, social workers, and mental health
technicians treat the patients in our care. This approach enables us to work
with the many different aspects of a person’s psychiatric illness and
focus on who they are. Clinic on the following
links for doctors’ bios: Matthew
D’Ortona,, PsyD Kevin
Field, PhD Rovert
Laurentz, PhD In
Behavioral Services, we help people with identifiable, diagnosable, and
treatable psychiatric illnesses who are at imminent risk. We treat a wide
variety of psychiatric illnesses, among them overwhelming anxiety, behavioral
and adjustment disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and
psychosis. Based on the results of
your evaluation, we develop a comprehensive treatment plan for you. Treatment
focuses on your specific behavioral health needs. You will learn new ways to
cope with your illness and the stress of being ill. We will also determine an
appropriate level of medication and teach you how to use it to its greatest
effectiveness. Twenty-four-hour care during your hospital stay helps ensure
your safety and wellbeing. Your care plan may include
individual meetings with psychiatrists, group therapy, and educational
programs. We provide: ●
behavioral health diagnostic assessment and evaluation ●
24-hour behavioral health monitoring and supervision ●
medication stabilization and management ●
individual and group therapy ●
recreation therapy ●
family therapy ●
patient and family education ●
discharge and after-care planning All of these therapies are
designed to help you return home and resume your life as quickly as possible.
Our discharge planners and social workers will work with you to plan and
coordinate care following hospitalization. By its very nature,
inpatient psychiatric care is unique within the hospital setting. The days are
busy. People dress in street clothes, eat together, do their own laundry,
and interact with peers – because it is out of the renewal of normal life
that people begin to get better. Family
plays an important role When one person in the
family suffers from a mental or emotional illness, everyone else in the family
is affected. Admission to a psychiatric treatment program is understandably
traumatic. Stresses and strains in relationships tend to be intensified. We
understand this and encourage family members to express their feelings and
learn new ways to cope with their frustrations. We help families participate in
the recovery process of their loved ones. Before you leave the
medical center, issues related to continuing treatment, physical safety, and
emotional support are addressed through discharge planning. Links with
community agencies are established to help ensure continued outpatient
treatment and wellbeing. Together you, your family,
and your treatment team will develop an appropriate after-care plan. Our
Behavioral Services Units have solid relationships with a variety of local
agencies, including the Tompkins County Mental Health Clinic, Family and
Children’s Services, Cayuga Addiction and Recovery Services, Tompkins
County Drug and Alcohol Council, Suicide and Crisis Prevention Service, and
private mental-health practitioners. We also interact regularly with student
health services at Cornell University and Ithaca College. Clients
and their families have a right to privacy. All information about people being
treated in our Behavioral Services Units is kept confidential unless we have
written consents to release information. We hold information confidential to
respect people’s privacy, and we are also required to do so by New York
State law. Some of the common signs
and symptoms of mental illness are: ●
Suicidal behavior or threats ●
Aggressive or violent behavior ●
Changes in sleeping or eating habits ●
Severe agitation ●
Going off prescribed medication ●
Severe mood swings ●
Excessive or uncontrolled anger ●
Hearing voices |
