Mental institution

Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals and mental asylums, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of serious psychiatric illnesses, such as autism, down syndrome, clinical depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialize only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients. Others may specialize in the temporary or permanent care of residents who, as a result of a psychological disorder, require routine assistance, treatment, or a specialized and controlled environment. Patients are often admitted on a voluntary basis, but people whom psychiatrists believe may pose a significant danger to themselves or others may be subject to involuntary commitment. Psychiatric hospitals may also be referred to as psychiatric wards (or "psych" wards) when they are a subunit of a regular hospital.

Modern psychiatric hospitals evolved from, and eventually replaced the older lunatic asylums. The treatment of inmates in early lunatic asylums was sometimes brutal and focused on containment and restraint. With successive waves of reform, and the introduction of effective evidence-based treatments, modern psychiatric hospitals provide a primary emphasis on treatment, and attempt where possible to help patients control their own lives in the outside world, with the use of a combination of psychiatric drugs and psychotherapy.

A crisis stabilization unit is in effect an emergency room for psychiatry, frequently dealing with suicidal, violent, or otherwise critical individuals. Open units are psychiatric units that are not as secure as crisis stabilization units. Another type of psychiatric hospital is medium term, which provides care lasting several weeks. In the United Kingdom, both crisis admissions and medium term care is usually provided on acute admissions wards. Juvenile or adolescent wards are sections of psychiatric hospitals or psychiatric wards set aside for children or adolescents with mental illness. Long-term care facilities have the goal of treatment and rehabilitation back into society within a short time-frame (two or three years). Another institution for the mentally ill is a community-based halfway house.

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