I think the three primary reasons why somebody should seek treatment at COPE are:
We have many research programs going on and so our patients benefit from the education and ongoing research that occur here at COPE and throughout the UPMC hospitals. We can offer state-of-the-art care, evidence informed care, and tailor our treatments based on the most current knowledge about eating disorders and their treatment.
The treatment team at COPE includes a range of specialists. We have psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, other medical professionals, and dieticians, and each of these individuals works with patients:
You certainly need a large institution if you are going to work with acutely ill individuals with eating disorders.So there are, of course many, ranges of eating disorder presentation and many ranges of eating disorder severity, but if you are going to work with individuals who have the most severe eating disorders, like we do at COPE, you really do need to have an integrated treatment team, access to specialized medical care, and access to multiple levels of care, the inpatient, the day hospital and other intensive outpatient programs.
So, things to look out for if you are concerned that your loved one might have an eating disorder:
Loved ones and family members have nothing to lose by calling COPE and just running over the symptoms that they are concerned about and asking for advice about what we would consider to be an appropriate next step.
Most likely, that’s going to be an evaluation where we are just going to meet with the patient, meet with the family member or loved one, as long as we have the patient’s permission to do so, and, and just learn a little bit more about what’s going on. And that will allow us to make recommendations accordingly.
For more information, contact COPE at 1-877-624-4100.