Hi ShellyKinelly,
Acute psychosis could be due to many things so it is really vague. In this context I am gathering it refers to someone who has no previous history of psychotic illness suddenly developing a psychosis.
In simple terms , Acute psychosis refers to when someone is delusional or having hallucinations , meaning they are believing things that are not based in reality or seeing or hearing things that are not there.
This can happen as a result of taking an illicit drug that precipitates this reaction , or sometimes prescribed drugs (e.g. one antimalarial drug is known to do this very occasionally) . Or it can sometimes be part of an illness or the beginning of a more long term illness e.g. schizophrenia .
The treatments at this stage are often the same though - to stabilise the person as quickly as possible with antipsychotic drugs and usually that happens pretty quickly . I would then get the person assessed by a psychiatrist when they return to Australia to work out what happened and how to proceed.
In the meantime. I hope your relative has a close friend or family member over there advocating for them as they may not be in any fit state to do so themselves. It is a scary and awful thing to happen especially so far from home and familiar services . However many do recover fully from them and don’t have another. I wish you all the best of luck in sorting it out .
