Main description:

This volume highlights the socioeconomic concerns related to medical care for homeless patients and places them at the interface of common psychiatric and medical problems clinicians encounter. Written by experts in psychiatry and other medical specialties, this volume is a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the homeless crisis, its costs, and ultimately, best practices for improved outcomes. The text begins by examining the scope and epidemiology of the problem and discusses its costs. It then examines the best practices for both physical and psychiatric care before concluding with a section on working with special populations that have unique concerns across the country including LGBTQ, women, children, veterans, and aging adults. As the first medical book on homelessness, it is designed to cover a broad range of concerns in a concise, practical fashion for all clinicians working with homeless patients.

Clinical Management of the Homeless Patient is written by and for psychiatrists, general internists, geriatricians, pediatricians, addiction medicine physicians, VA physicians, and all others who may encounter this crisis in their work.

Contents:

Part I: The Scope of the Problem

1. Epidemiology

2. Determinants of And Contributors To Homelessness

3. Legal/ethical issues

Part II: Societal Costs Of Homelessness :

4. Excess Police/Justice Involvement

5. Excess Ed Resource Use; Unnecessary Hospital Stays; Costs Of Shelters, Etc)

6. Human And Sex Trafficking And Homelessness

Part III: Best Practices

7. The Housing First Model

8. Pathways to Housing

9. The VA

10. Other

11. Efforts To Reduce Justice Reinvolvement: Jail Diversion, Justice Outreach, Justice Re-Entry)

12. Employment, Job Training, Education

Part IV: Psychiatric Issues and Treatment

13. Deinstitutionalization, Homelessness Among Seriously Mentally Ill, Prevalence Of Psychiatric Illness Among Homeless

14. Substance Use Disorders

15. Trauma

16. Nonadherence to treatment

17. Suicide Prevention

18. Cognitive impairment/TBI

19. Management of the chronic mentally ill and chronically suicidal patient who is in and out of the ER and inpatient all the time

Part V: Medical Issues

20. Diabetes, hypertension, HIV and other STDs, cellulitis, abscesses, arthritis

21. Infestations: bed bugs, lice, ant and mosquito bites and associated cellulitis

22. Managing these issues

23. A focus on toenails

Part VI: Special Populations

24. Veterans

25. Women

26. Children

27. LGBTQ

Older Homeless (50-65, 65 to 85 Years)