She played volleyball in high school, and her family remembers her as being profoundly capable in all things. She was keenly focused on academics and would be disappointed if she received a B in a class. She lived with her father, who had served in the Army, and her stepmother and is one of seven siblings. She balanced her dad’s checkbook and helped collect the rent on his properties. “We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.”Įven as a teenager growing up in Baltimore, April showed signs of the college accounting student she would later become.

“These are the forgotten souls,” said Markx. Researchers working with the New York state mental health-care system have identified about 200 patients with autoimmune diseases, some institutionalized for years, who may be helped by the discovery.Īnd scientists around the world, including Germany and Britain, are conducting similar research, finding that underlying autoimmune and inflammatory processes may be more common in patients with a variety of psychiatric syndromes than previously believed.Īlthough the current research probably will help only a small subset of patients, the impact of the work is already beginning to reshape the practice of psychiatry and the way many cases of mental illness are diagnosed and treated. The awakening of April - and the successful treatment of other people with similar conditions - now stand to transform care for some of psychiatry’s sickest patients, many of whom are languishing in mental institutions. We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.” - Sander Markx

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