Collaboration with emergency departments and neurology through the Center for Mental Disorders and Physical Complications

Abstract

Based on the hub-and-spoke model of medical collaboration between psychiatric hospitals in Osaka Prefecture, centered on the Kansai Medical University General Medical Center, the “Center for Mental Disorders and Physical Complications” was established to provide psychiatric and physical complications care to the entire Osaka area. It is necessary to differentiate among disorders that present with psychiatric symptoms, bearing in mind that there are various neurological disorders, including organic mental disorders. Among them, “autoimmune encephalitis”, “symptomatic epilepsy, psychogenic non-epileptic seizures”, and “Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease”, which are difficult to diagnose and important diseases, were explained. Each of these diseases has its own characteristics and may be difficult to diagnose when treated only by psychiatry. In the future, there will be an increasing need for general hospitals that can specialize in treating physical diseases in addition to treating psychiatric disorders.