Positive Advancements
A great amount of progress has been made since the nineteenth century in mental health, showing how our project is a prime example of a turning point in history. Present day mental hospitals offer private care where patients can be individually treated depending on their illness. Nurses and other employees of asylums during the 1800s ineffectively used physical methods to treat the insane. In modern times, those who care for the patients use medical and emotional tactics with care. The staff of institutions are very attentive today, constantly checking on their patients, making sure they are following their set routine. The government also recognizes the mentally ill with equality with various legislatures involving their rights and opportunities have been passed. One example of this advancement is the establishment of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002 by President Bush. This Commission helps to eliminate any inequality for Americans with mental or other disabilities. Acts such as the Americans with Disabilities Act increased job and educational opportunities for the disabled as well as technological aids created to help those with disabilities participate socially. Improvements in asylum conditions and treatment methods as well as government aid of those who were previously shunned due show how mental illnesses are now considered treatable as well as acceptable by society, a feat that would not have been achieved without the help of Elizabeth Packard.
“... Americans must understand and send this message: mental disability is not a scandal — it is an illness. And like physical illness, it is treatable, especially when the treatment comes early.”
--President George Bush