Intervening Early With Long-Acting Injectables

In this video, Psych Congress Steering Committee member Ilan Melnick, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Passageway Residences of Dade County, Miami, Florida, explains the benefits of early patient intervention using long-acting injectables (LAIs) to achieve stability and treatment adherence.

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Ilan Melnick, MD: Hi guys. My name's Ilan Melnick. I'm a psychiatrist out of Miami, Florida and steering committee member for Psych Congress. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about schizophrenia and the use of LAIs to help with compliance and help with adherence with patients with schizophrenia. I run the largest forensic community control program in the United States. One of the ways that we're able to get our patients to stay stable is by using long-acting injectables. Long-acting injectables give consistency and predictability to the medications that are in them. One of the things that we've learned is that the earlier the intervention, the better the outcomes. We're able to get these patients stable and get them back into the community as quickly as possible by keeping that consistent and predictable blood level. The use of these medicines has really been game changing and the way that we're able to get our patients stable is by using this.

One of the things that we've also learned is that the earlier the intervention, the better the outcome by giving the patient the opportunity to get on these medicines before their brains start deteriorating. We know that the early intervention of using long-acting injectables: it gives us the opportunity for our patients to beat the stigma. One of the challenges that we've always had is when we were trained, we were trained that using long-acting injectables we used with the sick of the sick, with the most non-compliant. What we've learned recently is that by using them earlier it's before the stigma actually takes place. And because of that, patients now are able to stay stable. Getting them stable, giving them their functionality back, is our true goal of treatment. And by using the LAIs will give us that opportunity. Thank you very much.

Ilan Melnick, MD, is the primary psychiatrist in two outpatient clinics in the Miami, Florida area, as well as a staff psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer at Passageway Residences of Miami-Dade County. In addition, Dr. Melnick is a staff psychiatrist and Medical Director for Jewish Community Services and performs independent medical and psychiatric evaluations for Miami-Dade County police, fire, transit and aviation departments.

Dr. Melnick received his medical degree from the Universidad Central del Caribe in Bayamon, Puerto Rico and went on to do his residency in psychiatry and fellowship in geriatric psychiatry at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital. He continues to be involved in education through his role giving grand rounds at major universities and hospitals around the world.