Teens with autism languish in hospitals
Teenagers and young adults with severe autism are spending weeks or even months in emergency rooms and acute-care hospitals because of a lack of community treatment programs able to deal with their outbursts, according to interviews with parents, advocates and physicians from Maine to California as well as federal and state data.
These young people — who may shout for hours, bang their heads on walls or lash out violently at home — are taken to the hospital after community social services and programs fall short and families call 911 for help
Once there, they sometimes are sedated or restrained for long periods as they wait for beds in specialized facilities or return home once families recover from the crisis or find additional support.
Although the data on extended hospital stays are limited, national numbers on people with an autism diagnosis who were seen in hospital ERs nearly doubled over five years, to 159,517 in 2014, according to the latest figures from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The total admitted for a behavioral or medical issues also nearly doubled to 26,811 in 2014.
“As more children with autism are identified, and as the population is growing larger and older, we see a lot more mental health needs in children and adolescents with autism,” said Aaron Nayfack, a developmental pediatrician at Sutter Health’s Palo Alto Medical Foundation in California who has researched the rise in lengthy hospitalizations. “And we have nowhere near the resources in most communities to take care of these children in home settings.”
The problem parallels the issue known as psychiatric boarding, which has been an increasing concern in recent years for a range of mental illnesses.
Both trace to the challenges of deinstitutionalization, the national movement that aimed to close large public facilities and provide care through community settings. But the resources to support that fell short long ago, exacerbated by the 2008 recession, when local, state and federal budget reductions forced sharp cuts in developmental and mental health services.