Psychiatric Medication Management

Our mental well-being is directly connected with our overall physical health. Experiences like stress or trauma can leave us anxious, overwhelmed and hopeless. Untreated, these feelings can lead to major psychological and physical illnesses or to behaviors that can become addictive and destructive. Tanya Sorrell, PhD, NP-C approaches mental health and substance abuse treatment through a multidisciplinary program that focuses on the whole person — physical, spiritual, psychological and social.

Not all patients and not all psychiatric problems need psychiatric medicines but there are certainly instances where prescription medicines are the most potent treatment available to relieve a patient’s suffering.  Medicines are commonly an important and effective part of the treatment of many mental illnesses to include depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety, panic, sleep problems, attention deficit disorder and several other disorders.

The psychiatric assessment/evaluation usually lasts one to one and one-half hours and includes:

• History of presenting illness
• Psychiatric history
• Medical history
• Family, social, educational, legal, abuse, and substance abuse history
• Mental status examination, which covers orientation, memory, insight, judgment, impulse control, and suicidal and homicidal thoughts

Based on this evaluation, a diagnosis is made and medications are prescribed if appropriate.  For medication management, an assessment is made to determine if the medication is working efficiently.  The medications are then changed, increased, decreased, or maintained based on the information obtained during this follow-up appointment. 

Medications are often utilized at the same time that other forms of treatment such as counseling, life management skills, and/or behavioral therapies are being used.  As would be expected, the use of prescription medicines introduces potential problems to be dealt with such as medicine risks and side effects, which are discussed with the customer.

The follow-up psychiatric medication management appointment usually lasts 30 minutes and includes:

• Review of symptoms
• Discussion of side effects
• Brief mental status examination

Tanya R. Sorrell, PhD, NP-C brings over 10 years of training and experience as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner to her use of medicines for the treatment of psychiatric illnesses.  Effective management of psychiatric medicines requires knowing which medicines are most likely to help; knowing if combinations of medicines might be more helpful than a single medicine; knowing which side effects are likely with a given medicine; knowing which lab test would be helpful in monitoring a medicine’s safe use; knowing which medicines are addictive and knowing how to talk about these matters in a common sense, understandable fashion with customers and their families.

Medication management appointments are an important service Tanya R. Sorrell, PhD, NP-C offers her customers.  How often medication management appoints are scheduled is different from patient to patient and depends in part on the wishes of the patient, the seriousness of the patient’s symptoms and the potential risks the medicine presents to the patient.  If you think that the use of a psychiatric medication might be helpful, please consider giving our office a call to schedule an appointment.