Category: Psychiatric Technician

Caring for those with Developmental Disabilities
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Gerontology and Aging enables any organization to understand and care for end-of-life concerns, social lives, and address the business challenges and care topics of long-term care organizations.
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Equip the staff with the underlying training to address the unforeseen issues with many patients and residents.
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Substance related disorders in staff and patients/residents.
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It is believed that 70% of adolescents have tried alcohol and 50% will have tried an illegal drug by their senior year of high school. In this same period of time, 40% of adolescents will have smoked a cigarette and 20% will have taken prescription pills for the purpose of getting high (NIDA, 2014). As a result of the number of adolescents who are engaging in substance use, over one million adolescents in the U.S. between ages 12 and 17 are in need of treatment for substance-related disorders (Griswold, Aronoff, Kernan & Kahn, 2008). Substance use and dependence in adolescents can have devastating long-term consequences. Substance use in adolescence has been found to be a contributing factor to the development of substance dependence in adulthood. This course discusses how to recognize substance-related disorders in adolescents. Evidence-based diagnosis and treatment of adolescent substance abuse is also included in this overview of substance-related disorders in adolescence.
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The AHA's Heartsaver Pediatric First Aid CPR AED Course has been updated to reflect new science in the 2015 American Heart Association Guidelines Update for CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care and the 2015 American Heart Association and American Red Cross Update for First Aid. Heartsaver Pediatric First Aid CPR AED Online is the eLearning portion of the Heartsaver Pediatric First Aid CPR AED Blended Learning Course and is designed to teach students cognitive information needed to respond to and manage illnesses and injuries in a child or infant in the first few minutes until professional help arrives. Upon completion of the online portion, students must complete hands-on skills session with an AHA BLS or Heartsaver Instructor.
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As a result of trauma experienced within their biological families, children in foster care have often been found to demonstrate sexual, aggressive, abusive, and inappropriate behaviors. Other challenging behaviors commonly seen with foster children include lying, stealing, anger, running away, efforts to self-harm, sleep problems, and bed wetting. The challenging behaviors exhibited as a result of abuse can lead to instability in their foster care placements, as well as difficulties in school when foster parents and teachers are ill-equipped to manage children who act out. Behavioral management techniques are essential in addressing some of the more common behavioral outbursts and problem behaviors seen in foster children. Behavioral management techniques teach foster children problem solving and socialization skills. The use of behavioral management techniques is essential to stabilize the placement of foster children, creating more positive outcomes for them within foster care, and ensuring their overall well-being. This course will discuss models of intervention, strategies for behavioral management, and how foster parents can utilize behavioral management techniques.
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"Substance Use Treatment Providers must be vigilant about patient privacy throughout treatment. In order to protect patient privacy and confidentiality, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), issued a Final Rule to amend 42 CFR Part 2. Any program with federal assistance must comply with the Final Rule, and all healthcare workers should be aware of the changes to consent, confidentiality, and privacy impacting patient treatment. While not completely aligned, HIPAA works together with 42 CFR Part 2 to strengthen patient privacy and confidentiality while undergoing substance abuse treatment. This course will provide an overview of HIPAA and 42 CFR Part 2, discuss how the two interact and work together, where there are challenges, and how to safeguard patient information in substance use treatment facilities."
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Crisis intervention is a currently evolving field as we face an increase of workplace violence and aggression as well as societal changes. Professionals working with people on a regular basis will experience conflict at some point. For those working in medical or behavioral health settings, it is also likely that a crisis on a small or potentially larger scale will be experienced at some point. Being prepared to address conflict and crisis as a clinician as well as a professional working in non-clinical settings is a necessity. Therefore, it is important to know how to handle conflict effectively to prevent escalation as well as what to do when a situation has resulted in a crisis. This course will discuss what constitutes a crisis and explore different techniques and strategies to intervene in a crisis, including de-escalation techniques.
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Both Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders can be diagnosed in childhood or adulthood. There are many different types of anxiety disorders, depending on the type of object or situation that provokes the excessive or inappropriate response. Like Anxiety Disorders, Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders can also have a pervasive negative impact on the quality of life. While we have all experienced some aspect of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, these disorders concern symptoms that dominate the person’s behavior to such an extent that they cause significant distress and/or interfere with major areas of functioning. This course will discuss both Anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, their symptoms, diagnoses included, and major features of each diagnosis.
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An entire chapter in the DSM-5 is devoted to depressive disorders. Depressive disorders are among the most frequently diagnosed mental disorders that clinicians are likely to encounter in their practice. However, not only the underlying causes and presenting symptoms but the duration and pervasiveness of the illness and degree of impairment vary greatly. All depressive disorders are characterized by the presence of a sad, empty, or irritable mood with accompanying cognitive and somatic changes that can significantly impair level of functioning. What distinguishes one disorder from another is primarily the duration, timing, and presumed etiology. This course will discuss new diagnoses in depressive disorders found in the DSM-5 as well as both descriptions of and distinguishing criteria for different types of depressive disorders.
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The decision of the DSM-5 manual authors to present the chapter on Feeding and Eating Disorders immediately following Somatic Symptoms Disorders makes sense since both categories of disorders are predominantly manifested by symptoms that are not just behavioral but physiological. Feeding and eating disorders entail a persistent disturbance in behavior associated with eating, resulting in the altered consumption of and absorption of food, which in turn adversely impacts physical health and/or psychosocial functioning. This course provides an overview of feeding and eating disorders and clarifies diagnostic criteria for all included disorders.
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This course provides a basic but comprehensive overview of one of the American Psychiatric Association’s major publications, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Although previous editions of the manual will be referred to briefly in the discussion as background material, the focus will be on the latest revised version. This is the edition published in May, 2013, and currently being used by psychiatrists, psychologists, and students of these disciplines all over the world, DSM-5. This course includes a brief description of the editions that preceded it to lay the groundwork for understanding both the present need for a DSM-5 and how it came to be.
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