The combination of sicker patients with increasingly mediocre services leads to an inevitable, and often tragic, outcome. The National Advisory Mental Health Council estimates that 40 percent of these individuals, or 1.4 million people, are not receiving treatment on any given day. These individuals do not realize that the hallucinations, delusions, paranoia and withdrawal they are experiencing are in fact symptoms of their illness. People with untreated serious brain disorders really believe that the CIA implanted electrodes in their brains or that their neighbors are shooting rays into their homes in an effort to control them. Violent episodes by individuals with untreated schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have risen dramatically, now accounting for an estimated 1,000 homicides annually in the United States.
Homicide is but one tragic result of untreated brain disorders.
Other consequences are homelessness, victimization, imprisonment, suicide, acts of aggression upon family members, and increased economic costs to society. In 1992, sociologist Henry Steadman studied individuals discharged from psychiatric hospitals. He found that 27 percent of released patients reported at least one violent act within four months of discharge. A 1990 study of families with a seriously ill loved one reported that 11 percent of the ill individuals had physically assaulted another person in the previous year. The contents of all material available on the Center's website are copyrighted by the Treatment Advocacy Center unless otherwise indicated.