Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Kalamazoo State Hospital
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|Title= Larned State Hospital
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|Body= The choice of Kalamazoo as the location for the Michigan Asylum at Kalamazoo was helped by the fact that the governor was Epaphroditus Ransom, who once resided in Kalamazoo. Although the asylum was originally planned for a site in what is now the Stuart neighborhood, it was decided that this location was too close to downtown. So planners instead chose to place the hospital far out in the country, where they would never be bothered by these people. That location was on what is now Oakland Drive, where the hospital is still located.
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|Body= Larned State Hospital was first opened on April 17th, 1914. The hospital was opened to ease overcrowding in two other established state hospitals in Kansas which were located in the eastern part of the state, Osawatomie State Hospital and Topeka State Hospital. The new ‘insane asylum’ at Larned was a preferred location because of the plentiful water supply. ‘Useful employment’ (farming) was the method of treatment to be used at LSH. In fact, early criteria critical to the selection of the first patients to populate the new hospital were being male, possessing the ability to work on the farm and being diagnosed as never becoming well enough to be discharged. No female patients were admitted until 1916. In an effort to ease the overcrowding, an annex was opened at the Army Air Force base in Great Bend which housed approximately 300 patients in 1947. The unit was designed to exclusively deal with elderly and custodial patients.The farming operation continued until the 1950’s. Adolescents and children were not admitted until the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
  
The asylum was on the cutting edge of many forms of treatment. Through its close proximity to a town, it was able to establish an innovative outpatient clinic in 1916 as well as a unique "family-care" program that placed patients in certified homes. The hospital also made use of colony farms, adjunct properties on which patients with milder illnesses — and those who today might be considered developmentally delayed — lived in familial farm settings. (One of these was near Kalamazoo's Asylum Lake.) They often raised livestock and produce for use at the hospital. The farms are examples of the limited treatment options for the mentally ill before the 1950s. He said that electroshock therapy, insulin-induced comas, and some barbiturate drugs resulted in little reversals in patients' thoughts and behavior.
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The Adult Treatment Center building opened in 1990 to house the general psychiatric population on what is now called the Psychiatric Services Program, serving individuals admitted from the LSH catchment area as a voluntary or civilly committed patients.  [[Larned State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
Narcoleptic or anti-psychotic drugs, such as Thorazine, would revolutionize psychiatric treatment and the role of psychiatric hospitals in society. Patients who had been in the hospital for decades were suddenly responsive, able to care for themselves, and moving back to live with their families. By 1987, the number of patients had dropped to 550. By 1959 the State Hospital had a patient load of 3,500 and 900 staff that included doctors, nurses, attendants, and service personnel. It became almost a city in its own right with a power plant, water system, bakery, laundry, library, canteen, garage, cannery, general kitchen, and greenhouse. For many years the hospital was one of the largest employers in Kalamazoo.  [[Kalamazoo State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Latest revision as of 04:19, 12 May 2024

Featured Article Of The Week

Larned State Hospital


Oldcampus.gif

Larned State Hospital was first opened on April 17th, 1914. The hospital was opened to ease overcrowding in two other established state hospitals in Kansas which were located in the eastern part of the state, Osawatomie State Hospital and Topeka State Hospital. The new ‘insane asylum’ at Larned was a preferred location because of the plentiful water supply. ‘Useful employment’ (farming) was the method of treatment to be used at LSH. In fact, early criteria critical to the selection of the first patients to populate the new hospital were being male, possessing the ability to work on the farm and being diagnosed as never becoming well enough to be discharged. No female patients were admitted until 1916. In an effort to ease the overcrowding, an annex was opened at the Army Air Force base in Great Bend which housed approximately 300 patients in 1947. The unit was designed to exclusively deal with elderly and custodial patients.The farming operation continued until the 1950’s. Adolescents and children were not admitted until the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

The Adult Treatment Center building opened in 1990 to house the general psychiatric population on what is now called the Psychiatric Services Program, serving individuals admitted from the LSH catchment area as a voluntary or civilly committed patients. Click here for more...