A series of case reports of reintegration of persons with mental illness with their family members

Abstract

Person with Mental Illness (PWMI) during the course of illness may get separated from their families due to their psychopathology or cognitive distortions. They may forget their identity and address of family, wander away to distant places. Because of illness person may have poor self-care, aggressive behaviour and wandering on roads. These may grab the attention of social workers, NGO’s, Police personnel will get them admitted into Mental Health Facility [MHF] for treatment with reception order, get better in course of time. When they improve then real problem arises because after recovery PWMI are not supposed to be kept in MHF. Reunion of PWMI with family is challenging with available resources. It involves many people like doctors, social workers, police and other higher authorities to trace the families. But new technology like Google maps, Aadhar finger print are helping a lot by decreasing the time spent for tracing the families of PWMI. With the help of all these people and technology, family members were traced and reunited with PWMI. Here we presenting a series of cases where the PWMI who wandered away because of their mental illness, found in our city brought to our MHF through court order and were treated. Their addresses were traced through a team work of doctors, social workers, police and technology and were reintegrated with their families.

Keywords

• reintegration
• mentally ill
• technology
• wandering lunatic.