Does someone you care about experience the following?:

** Depressed mood

** Extreme feelings of sadness and grief

** Isolating and withdrawing from life

** Decrease in social interactions

** Decline in general health and physical fitness

** Lack of attention to personal hygiene

** Increased irritability, anger and agitation

** Loss of independence

** Anxiety and panic attacks

** Self-injurious behaviors

** Insomnia or excessive sleeping

** Significant weight loss or gain

In November, Auburn Memorial Hospital will open The Center for Behavioral Health, a 14-bed adult psychiatric inpatient unit in a newly remodeled area of the hospital, 3 Central. The large, semi-private rooms are complete with sinks and lavatories. The rooms meet New York State Office of Mental Health environmental standards.

An open house for our community will be held at The Center for Behavioral Health in November. Watch for further information in The Citizen.

The Center for Behavioral Health, certified by the New York State Office of Mental Health, will serve patients ages 18 and older with acute symptoms of psychiatric illness or disorder that require a safe, therapeutic environment for re-stabilization.

The Center will be a short-term care facility focused on stabilizing patients and returning them to the care of an out-patient facility or to their family. Average length of stay does not typically go beyond 14 days.

Upon admittance, each patient will receive a full assessment by a board certified psychiatrist, registered nurse, social worker, recreational therapist and medical physician. These individuals, along with the patient and family, then develop an individualized patient treatment plan.

This team will provide a safe, therapeutic, confidential environment for treatment consisting of individualized psycho-education, group therapy and activities. The nurse manager, along with medical leadership, will oversee the continuous provision of safe, professional and clinically appropriate care.

Dr. Elisabeth Mashinic and Dr. Stanley Poreba, psychiatrists, have been added to the AMH medical staff.

Prior to joining AMH, Mashinic was in private practice in Ithaca, where she conducted contract work for the Schuyler County Mental Health Clinic in Watkins Glen and the Seneca View Skilled Nursing Facility in Montour Falls. She is board certified in child and adolescent psychiatry and adult psychiatry. She completed her fellowship in child psychiatry at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and the State University of NY at Buffalo; her residency in psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York in general surgery at both Catholic Medical Center of Brooklyn and Queens and New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens, and her residency in pathology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.

Poreba was the interim medical director at the Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake prior to joining AMH. He is board certified in psychiatry and addiction psychiatry. He completed his postgraduate training in pathology at Metropolitan Hospital in New York, in internal medicine at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx and psychiatry at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center's Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in New York.

He is a graduate of the Wroclaw Medical Academy in Wroclaw, Poland.

Beverly Miller is the director of community relations and the

Hospital Foundation at Auburn Memorial Hospital