Tomoyuki Funatogawa1, Naoyuki Katagiri1, Takahiro Nemoto1, Masafumi Mizuno1; 1Toho University Department of Neuropsychiatry, Tokyo, Japan
The Toho University Omori Medical Center is located in Ota, a city with a population of about 700,000 located in the southern area of the Tokyo Metropolitan region. In 2007, we established a comprehensive treatment center for young people with psychiatric problems, consisting of a Youth Clinic, which specialises in the treatment of young people with an at-risk mental state for psychosis (ARMS), a Child and Adolescent Clinic, which specialises in the treatment of developmental disorders and school-age problems, and Il Bosco, which is a special day-care service for individuals with early psychosis. Il Bosco aims to provide early intervention to prevent the development of full-blown psychosis in individuals with ARMS and to provide intensive rehabilitation to enable patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP) to return to school and community life. So far, 247 patients with a mean age of 21.2 years and a mean GAF score of 48.2 at the baseline have used this facility. The contents of the daily programs are specifically designed for promoting the brain plasticity of young patients and providing them with an environment where they can obtain relief and support without the stigma of psychiatric disease. About two-thirds of the patients have already achieved their own goals to ‘restart’ their lives after attending the one-year program. The drop-out rate was quite low (16.8%). At present, we provide the same programs for ARMS and FEP patients at Il Bosco. However, we propose to start more phase-specific and need-specific services which are indispensable for early psychiatric interventions in the future.
