BACKGROUND Little is known about the long-term outcome of involuntary admissions to psychiatric hospitals. AIMS To assess involuntary readmissions and patients' retrospective views of the justification of the admission as 1-year outcomes and to identify factors associated with these outcomes. METHOD Socio-demographic data and readmissions were collected for 1570 involuntarily admitted patie...

Chorea-acanthocytosis (ChAc) is a rare hereditary disorder characterized by involuntary choreiform movements and erythrocytic acanthocytosis. Pharmacotherapy for control of involuntary movements has generally been of limited benefit. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has recently been used for treatment of some refractory cases of ChAc. We report here on the effect of bilateral high-frequency DBS of...

This article argues that a more realistic view should be taken of the implications of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for mental health law than the view taken by the UN monitoring committee, in its General Comment on Equal Recognition Before the Law, in 2014. This more realistic interpretation would not forbid reliance on the concept of mental capacity in the law. Nor...

The involuntary commitment of psychiatrically ill patients remains a controversial subject. Arguments have been made that involuntary commitment is a form of" social control" and as such should be totally abolished. I Others have argued that although involuntary commitments should be kept to a minimum, there is a small but significant portion of the population who are in great need of treatment...

The primary goals of the law are to develop the field of mental health, to standardize mental health services and to protect the legal rights and interests of persons with mental disorders. Despite having a common goal of addressing the complicated problem of mental disorders, drafting the law was a long and tortuous process because of the competing interests of the various stakeholders: patien...

Dutch law provides rules for therapeutic relations. Basically therapeutic relations are agreements reached between a professional provider and a care seeker. Rules apply to treatment relations in somatic medicine as well as in psychiatry. Additional legislation (BOPZ) affects the involuntary hospitalization in psychiatric hospitals and the use of coercive treatment. Determinants for application...

In a previous issue of The Journal, I anticipated the decision of the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Loughner. The Ninth Circuit's opinion upheld the involuntary medication of Mr. Loughner under a Harper order, with awareness that he could thereby gain trial competence, and it allowed Mr. Loughner's extended commitment to Federal Medical Center (FMC)-Springfield for the purpose of rendering ...

We describe the legal framework within which we carry out consultations, otherwise called expertises, with view to considering involuntary admissions to hospital for the treatment of mental illness (here called confinements). We note that in our area only 40% of consultations lead to involuntary admissions to hospital, and we believe that this number is related to our consideration of alternati...