The Terrebonne Mental Health Center is one of two locations in Louisiana and 35 nationwide selected to participate in the National Institute of Mental Health’s Recovery after an Initial Schizophrenia Episode, or RAISE, project. the study will test whether early intervention can help those with recent signs of schizophrenia or related psychiatric disorders to stay well and function better.

The National Institute of Mental Health is the federal government’s research branch that focuses on studying mental illness and its treatment.

“Our primary mission, as always, is to provide the best treatment possible, and clients don’t need to qualify for the study to receive treatment.” said Lisa Schilling, executive director of the South Central Louisiana Human Services Authority. “Early intervention has long been viewed as critical to long-term success, and we are honored to be a part of a program like this.”

The study was paid for with $16 million in federal stimulus dollars, according to the American Recovery Act website, Recovery.gov, which tracks the progress of grants.

Schilling said the Terrebonne Mental Health Center is actively recruiting patients for the study. it must meet a quota of recruiting at least two new patients per month for the next year, or the center will be dropped from the study.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that can make it difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, to think logically, to have normal emotional responses and to behave normally in social situations.

Schizophrenia and related serious mental-health disorders make up about 50 percent of the patients that come through the South Central Louisiana Human Services Authority programs for treatment, Schilling said.

With few mental health resources available in the region, Schilling said, “we see almost all of them.”

The local agency, which operates under the state Department of Health and Hospitals, sees about 10,000 patients a year. it works with Louisianans with issues related to addiction, mental health and developmental disabilities.

Schilling said there are only about 60 inpatient psychiatric beds in the area to hospitalize patients with severe mental illness. her agency treats locals on an outpatient basis.

Schizophrenia has proved one of the most expensive diseases to treat. the World Health Organization has rated schizophrenia the second-most burdensome disease in the world after heart disease.

Schizophrenia and related illnesses often strike young people in the prime of life. a third of all mental health care spending in the U.S. is spent on treatments for the disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Schizophrenia also incurs many indirect costs, including time and money spent by the patient’s caregivers and law enforcement costs required when the disease isn’t managed properly.

The study will compare the effectiveness of early-treatment programs with traditional treatment. Early-treatment programs will be tailored to the patient’s needs, providing medication, therapy, family involvement, education and employment. the treatments will focus on reducing the patient’s symptoms and improving their ability to live a normal life.

“we have counselors and support staff working in all these areas,” said Sue Saia, Terrebonne Mental Health Center manager. “after a patient’s first psychotic break, we’ll give them all the support they need. we want to show that if you intervene early, this doesn’t have to be a tragedy in their life. it can be managed like any other mental illness.”

The study pays for the patients’ care, as well as a percentage of the salaries of local staff who treat them. the study also offers small incentives to participants for signing up.

The study is recruiting people between the ages of 15 and 40 who are experiencing the early stages of schizophrenia and related disorders, Saia said.

Symptoms include hallucinations, delusions and strange thinking patterns. You must not have taken antipsychotic medication for more than four months.

You also must live in Terrebonne, Lafourche, Assumption, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist or St. Mary parishes, the areas served by Terrebonne’s Region 3 state-run mental health center.

If you’re interested in participating in the study, contact Project Director Brooke Guidry at 858-2989 or Saia at 985-857-3615 ext. 109. You can also e-mail .

More information is available online at raiseetp.org.

Staff Writer Nikki Buskey can be reached at 857-2205 or nicole.buskey@houmatoday.com.

But for Highland woman Kathryn Aspinall (40) it would be a major setback that would send her into a spin and disrupt the rest of her day.

For years she could not understand the reasons for her reactions to what others would see as a minor mishap – or why she couldn’t socialise like others do.

She also struggled to know why she could not settle properly into her job as a scenes of crime photographer for Northern Constabulary or why she sank into the depths of depression to the extent she wanted to end it all.

That was until two years ago, when a new doctor suggested she may have autism – and then everything began falling into place.

Kathryn, who lives by Beauly, said: “Now when I go into the supermarket and it doesn’t have the thing I am looking for, I take a deep breath because I know there is a reason why I feel the way I do. it does help knowing, but it doesn’t make it go away.”

Before medics assessed her for autism, Kathryn, who is a member of Autism Rights Group Highland (ARGH), a group for adults with the condition, was being treated for a host of psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia and psychosis.

She explained: “I was in and out of the psychiatric service for 10 years. it got to the point where I tried to take my life, where I could not cope and everything in my life fell apart. I felt I couldn’t understand the world.”

Looking back, she thinks there were tell-tale signs from early childhood. She admits that socially she was a “disaster area”.

She said: “I loved school but I hated the playground. Playtime was a nightmare, as was going to the dinner hall, so I would skip lunch – it was the social thing I didn’t like and the kids and the noise. I could not fit in.”

She began skipping lessons, but she believes because she still managed to achieve academically nobody picked up that anything was wrong.

After studying physics at university in Leeds, she moved north in 1995 when she started working for Northern Constabulary as a scenes of crime photographer.

Although she loved the job, she said everything “fell apart” and she ended up going off sick, and suffered stress and depression. After seven years in the job, she was medically retired in 2002.

She said: “Looking back, it ended up in a mess. If I had known at that time I had this condition it might have made a difference.”

It was at that time that Kathryn, who has not worked since, ended up in the mental health services and was admitted to New Craigs Hospital in Inverness on so many occasions she described it as being her “second home”.

However, since she discovered her symptoms were down to autism two years ago, she has not been to hospital since.

She said: “I didn’t know what autism was. it is portrayed in the media as being strange people who don’t communicate and have problems. My initial thought was that I did not have a problem with people.”

She began reading up on the condition and started realising how many symptoms she had, including needing order and routine and taking people literally in what they are saying.

Other symptoms experienced by those on the autistic spectrum include having difficulties with both verbal and non-verbal language, finding it hard to use or understand facial expressions or tones of voice, jokes and sarcasm and common sayings.

Some people with autism may not speak, or have fairly limited speech, and have difficulty recognising or understanding other people’s emotions and feelings, and expressing their own.

Kathryn Aspinall is a member of support group Autism Rights Group Highland, which has made cards for autistic people to hand out to explain their behaviour in difficult situations. Katy Sutherland

Some prefer to spend time alone and find it hard to predict what will happen next in a situation or understand the concept of danger.

As yet, Kathryn has not been formally diagnosed, as there is nobody currently in the Highlands qualified to give an adult diagnosis.

However, because she does not have a learning disability nor a mental health condition, the services have fallen away.

She added: “Now they have changed the label I don’t qualify for services. I have already been told that even when I am diagnosed, there will be no services for me.”

However, now she is part of ARGH, she hopes to play a part in improving the lives of autistic people.

The group was the first of its kind in the UK and is still the only one in Scotland. Set up three years ago, it is run entirely by autistic adults and among its aims is to change people’s preconceptions of them.

Its chairperson is Kerry Brook (38), of Inverness, who, like Kathryn, did not realise she had the condition until later on in life.

She also found it hard to fit in socially at school, felt she did not understand the “social rules” everybody seemed to follow, suffered depression and even went on to work with autistic people. however, it was not until age 30 that she was diagnosed when one of her three children underwent assessment for the condition.

Since becoming involved in ARGH, which was recently Scottish winner of the Kerrygold Community Awards 2010, she said support for their work has been “overwhelming”.

Its task is to inform service providers about what autistic people really experience, campaign for better services for autistic people in the Highlands and challenge stigma, prejudice and discrimination through education.

And the recent ?1,000 cash boost from the Kerrygold award is already enabling them to take a step forward, as they have just produced 100 alert cards costing ?170.

Members can carry the cards, and when they feel they are in a difficult situation, they can show them to people to explain they have autism, they are likely to be extremely anxious in unfamiliar situations, that they may become uncommunicative or non-verbal under stress and their behaviour may appear unpredictable or inappropriate.

Kerry outlined the group’s other roles, including working with the Highland Users Group on a report on mental health and people on the autistic spectrum; being part of a coalition supporting the proposed Autism bill Scotland; and providing training for professionals from an autistic perspective.

One of the group’s 35 members, Elkie Kammer, has also had an autobiography published called Discovering who I am: growing up in the world of Asperger Syndrome.

Kerry said: “It is great to see that people really appreciate and value what we do, that people are interested in supporting the idea that autistic people are valued as part of the community as equals.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to keep fighting for our rights in the face of prejudice and discrimination. To know that there are so many people out there that support us gives us a new vigour to carry on and grow.”

* For more information about the group, email or visit arghighland.co.uk