During our initial LIVE talk with Dr. Merrill Winston there were several comments and questions in the chat we felt needed to be further addressed. In this “ATBA after dark” follow-up, Merrill addresses the concerns that come with medications being administered for behavior reduction (including challenging and sexual behaviors), tips for collaborating with prescribing professionals, and the importance of objective measurements.

Learning Objectives:

1. The importance of understanding deductive and inductive reasoning when it comes to treatment.

2. Provide ideas on how to collaborate with prescribing physicians, psychiatrists.

3. Create behavioural definitions to help collect data on potential medication side effects.

4. Understand the expectations of medication- what is it supposed to look like if things go right?

5. Understand the ethical considerations when it comes to “dampening” medications, whether it be aggression, self-injury, sexual behaviors.

Take Aways- your bite-sized educational noms

- Deductive reasoning is a logical approach that moves from general ideas to more specific conclusions. Inductive reasoning on the other hand draws conclusions by moving from the specific to generic.

- Building relationships and rapport not only includes with our client and their caregivers but should involve the whole team for the client, and this may include prescribing physicians and psychiatrists.  Collaborating with these other professionals allows us the chance to remain in our scope of competence but remain curious and advocate for the client.

- The science of behavior provides the opportunity to set clear measures for medication, not just “feels better”. What are the medications prescribed for? Depression or because the individual cries throughout the day? What are some of other variables that could be affecting this behavior? Remember from Ep23, medications affect the effect, and effect the affect. If the medications “work”, what will others observe?

- Ethically we need to consider who the medication is benefiting and why. Are medications given that limit sexual desire because the individual engages in masturbation when instead a lesser intrusive method could include ruling out medical issues, skills deficits, training.

Worth 1.5 Learning, 1.5 Ethics CEUs

Purchase CEUS for $8 at: https://atypicalba.com/product/ce-certification/

Have some interstellar discussion on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/atypicalba

Check us out on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atypicalba/

Don't need CEUs but want to support the show? Click here to donate to the adventure: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AtypicalBA

Contact us at: [email protected], [email protected]

Music by: www.purple-planet.com