Nor are they interested in physiology. they re lost. Behaviour is a nonspecific sign which tells you nothing except whether an animal can take care of itself in the wild. And the mentally ill cannot take care of themselves in the wild. Because they have some level of dementia. And psychiatrists do not recognize the signs of dementia in young adults. they are not trained to. They have no idea what is going wrong in these poor young adults. And the parents of these young adults are devastated by their ignorance of physiology and medicine, because psychiatrists are supposed to be doctors.
Abnormal mental status is a medical emergency even if you do not immediately die. This is because animals need to be able to handle themselves in the wild. If they can’t they are abandoned and/or are at risk of harm from predators.
Psychiatrists are geniuses at double talk; they cannot state the obvious. They cannot tell the parents of these young adults that they are very ill. Psychiatrists do not know what to say or what to do and are not interested in the biological clues that accompany serious mental illnesses. When these young adults fall ill, they can no longer function on their own. And the reason must be examined medically; something which psychiatrists are poorly equipped to do. And since these patients are often sick and disabled for a long time, there are plenty of opportunities to learn whether what pathophysiology needs to be uncovered by simply starting with vital signs at rest and by examining the ventilatory mechanisms of breathing, as well as looking at the lung function.
All the medical education which goes into making a doctor is lost upon psychiatrists. Because they do not understand that altered mental status is a medical emergency. Loosing one’s mind is a medical emergency. People cannot take care of themselves if their mental status is affected. Since death comes slowly with abnormal mental status, there is plenty of time to learn about the biology of mind. And the biology of mind first and foremost will involve the physical and mechanical ability to move air in and out of the body and lungs. Even the ability to eat food is secondary to breathing, because eating food produces carbon dioxide gas in the body which must be cleared by exhaling air. If enough of this air is not expelled, the patient will not be able to eat properly and so starts a viscous circle which will affect the mind and behavior and slowly degrade the body.
If psychiatrists had kept up to date with medical science, especially the field of critical care, they might understand what has happened to their patients, but they are deluded and they are ignorant. And, in my opinion psychiatrists do not take bipolar illness or schizophrenia seriously enough. These are critical illnesses. They should be worked up physically not psychologically. They should be looking for a medical cause . And if they do not find it initially ( altered mental studs has many physical causes), they have plenty of time to look some more. They should especially look at acid base of the blood, intracranial pressure and breathing rate and volume and exchange of air per minute.
it is well known ( in the medical textbooks written in order to pass exams) that abnormal acid base of the blood results in patterns of mental confusion, YET doctors will not think of acid base problems when they encounter mental confusion at any age. Why? Because these are still new ideas which exist mainly in textbooks and in critical care facilities. Although stuff like this is obviously important to walking and talking adults who get sick, this information has not made it to mainstream ambulatory medical practice and certainly does not even begin to be imagined in psychiatric practice.
And so seriously mentally ill patients can linger their entire lives without being examined as critically ill patients, who need some form of resuscitation to come back to their full physiological function and resume their normal lives.
It is so frustrating to see that psychiatrists know nothing of 19th, 20th or 21st century physiology and know nothing of resuscitation of very sick people.
The chemistry of the body and of the brains what is needed to understand possible reversible mental disturbance. And respiratory rate is key to understanding the feedback mechanisms affecting the chemistry of the blood and of the brain. And psychiatrists know nothing of this. it is so frustrating1
General medial practice must integrate knowledge of abnormal minute ventilation and the possible abnormalities of the chemistry of the blood in order to understand mental disturbance.
Of Sound Mind 