What is assisted outpatient treatment?
Assisted outpatient treatment (also called things like involuntary outpatient commitment or mandated community treatment) promotes availability and accessibility for those that are most at risk. It allows the courts to order outpatient treatment for people with severe mental illnesses who are least able to help themselves or most likely to present a risk to others, giving family members and the mental health community a tool to help very sick people who cannot make their own medical decisions. At least 40% of the 4.5 million people in the United States who are diagnosed with either schizophrenia or manic-depression, the two severest forms of mental illness, do not and cannot realize they are sick because the illness affects their brain’s frontal-lobe function, which is necessary to make that determination. Because they do not know they are sick, they refuse medication and often deteriorate. Assisted outpatient treatment commits the patient to the treatment system, but it also commits t
