Home > Our Treatment Results
We provide services in the community to adults with serious mental illness that will stabilize their illness, minimize symptoms, improve functioning and enhance each person's social inclusion, quality of life and sense of meaning in life.
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Our Clients
The Results of our Treatment
How We Achieve the Results
Who do we treat?
Our primary target group of clients is people who suffer from a serious mental illness, such as a psychotic disorder or severe depression, many of whom have not done well in prior treatment. Our mission is to help these people with serious mental illness find the road to recovery, feel better and do well in life. The majority of our clients are diagnosed with a psychotic illness. What follows is a brief description of these clients, some information about their outcome from illness after they have been in treatment with Colorado Recovery for different periods of time, and an account of the services used to help them get there.
In November 2012, we gathered information about the entire group of 85 of our clients with a diagnosis of a psychotic disorder.
Characteristics of Current Clients with a Psychotic Disorder:
| Gender: | |
| Male: | 69% |
| Female: | 31% |
| Age: | |
| 18-25 years: | 34% |
| 26-35 years | 32% |
| 36-73 years | 34% |
We accept people with serious mental illness at any stage of their illness and expect good outcomes regardless of the duration of the disorder. Two-thirds of our clients are under 35 years of age but clients of any age will feel comfortable in our program.
Every new Colorado Recovery client gets an immediate and thorough psychiatric evaluation by one of our psychiatrists and a therapist which includes gathering full details on the person’s previous life, his/her experience of illness and prior treatment efforts. We involve close family members in the process of gathering this information. After assessing the client to get a full clinical picture, the treatment team gives an initial diagnostic impression and makes recommendations about further assessment and treatment. The client’s previous diagnosis may change at this point or later, after a period of further assessment. A careful evaluation of the correct diagnosis and most effective treatment plan is central to the success of care at Colorado Recovery.
The diagnoses listed here are the diagnoses we determined to be accurate after initial assessment and treatment. All of our psychiatrists have input into this diagnostic process. Our diagnosis is sometimes different from the client’s previous diagnosis.
| Diagnosis: | |
| Bipolar disorder: | 43% |
| Schizophrenia: | 22% |
| Schizoaffective disorder: | 22% |
| Other psychosis: | 5% |
| **No psychotic disorder: | 8% |
| **These are clients who were referred to us with a diagnosis of psychosis whom we determined do not suffer from a psychotic disorder. |
We treat any type of psychotic disorder; we do not specialize in one over another. Most of our clients, in fact, are diagnosed with an “affective disorder” like severe depression, bipolar disorder or schizoaffective disorder. Failure to recognize or effectively treat these illnesses can lead to poor outcome, often resulting in referral to our specialist services. This could explain why we have more clients with these disorders.
Alcohol and drug problems in addition to psychiatric illness: 52%
Many of our clients who are admitted to treatment for a psychotic disorder have a substance use problem in addition to their psychiatric disorder. Successful treatment requires that we partner with the client to tackle both problems. We provide services that make this possible.
Colorado Recovery offers not only thorough psychiatric evaluation, accurate diagnosis and optimal treatment to stabilize the person’s illness, we also continue to work with our clients in the community to ensure continued stability and progress towards the person’s life goals – independence, education, employment, career advancement and enhanced social relations. As a result many of our clients continue in some level of community care with us for months or years.
| Length of Time in Treatment with Colorado Recovery | |
| 6 months or less: | 14% |
| 7 months to 2 years: | 33% |
| 2-6 years: | 49% |
How successful are we in helping our clients achieve their life goals?
Many of our clients with psychosis are people who have not done at all well in prior treatment. Despite this fact, within a few weeks or months of entering treatment, most are moving towards independent living and a productive lifestyle. Many return to higher education.
Results of Treatment for our current clients with a psychotic disorder
| Clients in Treatment with Colorado Recovery for: | |||
| 0-6 months |
7-24 months |
2-6 years |
|
| Current Employment and Education | |||
| Paid employment: | 17% | 32% | 27% |
| In school: | 0% | 4% | 20% |
| **Any work, school, homemaker, retired: | 17% | 50% | 53% |
| **Includes paid and volunteer work and other age-appropriate productive roles. | |||
Despite the recent economic recession, our clients achieve substantially higher rates of paid employment than is usual for people with similar disorders. Across the US, rates of paid employment for people with serious mental illness are generally in the range of 10–15%. Our clients are two to three times as likely to be so employed. Many of our clients also go on to pursue higher education. The majority of those who choose to continue in community treatment with Colorado Recovery achieve an age-appropriate productive lifestyle which can often include volunteer work.
| Clients in Treatment with Colorado Recovery for: | |||
| 0-6 months |
7-24 months |
2-6 years |
|
| Current Living Situation | |||
| Independent: | 17% | 57% | 67% |
| Supervised living: | 33% | 7% | 18% |
| With family: | 8% | 21% | 9% |
| Acute treatment setting: | 42% | 14% | 0% |
Just about all our clients want to live independently, with no in-home supervision, and the large majority do so. We ensure that the quality of life in the independent living situation is high. A nice home with easy access to local facilities, a pleasant neighborhood, friends to live with, pets if the client wishes, a clean and healthy environment and opportunities for a decent social life with indoor and outdoor recreational activities – these are the things that our case managers, our “basic attendance” staff and our psychosocial clubhouse aim to make possible.
| Clients in Treatment with Colorado Recovery for: | |||
| 0-6 months |
7-24 months |
2-6 years |
|
| Some substance use problems: | 75% | 50% | 44% |
The majority of our clients with serious mental illness have some kind of a problem with substance use, mostly alcohol and marijuana, when they arrive. Because these habits can impede recovery from a psychotic disorder we pay close attention to them. We provide a thorough assessment to detect difficulties with substance use and, where needed, individual and group substance-use counseling, toxicology screening and other appropriate treatment. Of necessity, we are a dual diagnosis facility.
How do we achieve these results?
Our community-based services are intensive. We encourage people to develop insight into their illnesses – but we do so while helping them feel empowered, so that they do not succumb to the effects of internalized stigma. We prescribe medications that are most suited to their condition in doses that lead to minimal side effects and allow them to be active, vigorous and healthy and we also ensure that they take the medication regularly.
Services provided for current clients with a psychotic disorder
| Clients in Treatment with Colorado Recovery for: | |||
| 0-6 months |
7-24 months |
2-6 years |
|
| Current Services Intensity | |||
| Psychiatric hospital: | 17% | 0% | 0% |
| Acute residential treatment: | 25% | 14% | 2% |
| Intensive outpatient treatment: | 33% | 21% | 13% |
| Moderate intensity OP treatment: | 8% | 14% | 9% |
| Standard outpatient treatment: | 17% | 50% | 76% |
| Daily administration of medications: | 67% | 25% | 22% |
We provide treatment and rehabilitation services in the least restrictive setting possible. Clients move out of acute residential treatment into intensive outpatient services as soon as their condition allows. The intensity of outpatient treatment is gradually relaxed over time so that we can determine the least intensive service that will work for the client at each stage of rehabilitation.
| Clients in Treatment with Colorado Recovery for: | |||
| 0-6 months |
7-24 months |
2-6 years |
|
| Services Provided in Past Year | |||
| Family education about illness: | 100% | 89% | 71% |
| Vocational services: | 75% | 32% | 33% |
| Training in activities of daily living: | 75% | 39% | 12% |
| Assistance with money management: | 67% | 57% | 31% |
| Transitional housing: | 67% | 54% | 15% |
| In-home support and assistance: | 50% | 39% | 24% |
| Urine toxicology screening: | 67% | 54% | 15% |
| Substance abuse counseling: | 75% | 54% | 22% |
Included in outpatient services are supported employment and, where needed, substance abuse services. When necessary, we help our clients learn the principles of budgeting their money, personal hygiene, healthy living and preserving a clean and orderly living environment. We include the family at every stage of treatment, providing education and support to family members. All of these services become less necessary as the client gains greater and greater control over the illness and moves forward with his or her life.
We have designed our program so that our clients can get an array and intensity of services that meet each individual’s current needs – minimizing symptoms, stabilizing illness, improving functioning and pointing the way to full social inclusion, good quality of life and a sense of meaning in life. These results are a measure of the success that we are having in meeting these goals.
