Mental illnesses

Bipolar disorder or manic depressive illness, refers to a severe mental illness characterized by recurring episodes of mania and depression. 

Rice DP et al (1990) The economic costs of alcohol and drug abuse and mental illness, US Department of Health and Human Services, San Francisco... 

Evaluation of the economics of mental illness in primary care is an ongoing initiative of the UK Department of Health (Lloyd and Jenkins, 1995). A similar American study in Washington State included sub-threshold anxiety or depression, but these imposed relatively little economic load compared with disorder-level anxiety or depression (Simon et al, 1995). Mental health treatment accounted for only a small part of overall utilization, approximately 5%. Nevertheless, most patients with anxiety or depressive disorders showed considerable improvement. This was accompanied by only modest reductions in cost. 

Pharmacoeconomics is a nascent discipline which has not yet provided clinicians and budget managers with the level of information necessary for confident decision-making. This is particularly true in psychiatry where the dearth of acceptable, reliably measurable clinical end points makes pharmacoeconomic evaluation even more complex and open to debate. Nonetheless, the data reviewed in this book, when placed alongside clinical data, do provide a framework for decision-making which is better informed and more realistic than any exclusively clinical assessment could be. Economic evaluations in all major mental illnesses, while some way from conclusive, are certainly providing valuable guidance to decision-makers both at policy level and in the clinic. 

Professor Kerwin has published very widely on many aspects on the use of drugs in mental illness. His publications include Neurobiology and Psychiatry (Cambridge University Press, 1995) and the Maudsley 2001 Prescribing Guidelines (Martin Dunitz, 2001). 

In the case of mental illness, new drug therapies have especially been the focus of attention, partly because psychotropic medication has, for a long time, contributed little to the overall cost of treatment, but also because, with the advent of new generations of antipsychotics and antidepressants, healthcare providers are now searching for justification for the use of these much more expensive treatments. 

Despite its characteristic symptoms and even after the exclusion of other established causes, AzD can only be reliably diagnosed by neuropathology and microscopic examination of the brain. Indeed that is how it came by its name. In 1907, a German physician, Alois Alzheimer, described two distinct post-mortem changes in the brain of a woman patient who had died with an unusual mental illness. These were the now characteristically accepted markers of the disease, namely senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (Fig. 18.1). 

Apprehension, worry, difficulty in concentration, irritability, insomnia Fear of (for example) death, ineffectiveness, failure, humiliation, mental illness... 

Kety, S.S. Rosenthal, D. Wender, P.H. and Schulsinger, F. The types and prevalence of mental illness in the biological and adoptive families of adoptive schizophrenics. In Rosenthal,... 

These culture-specific manifestations of the symptoms are determined by beliefs about mental illness that are shared by the group. Such beliefs attempt to explain... 

Agbayani-Siewert, P., Takeuchi D. Pangan, R. (1999). Mental illness in a multicultural context. In C. Aneshensel and J. Phelann, eds., Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health. New York Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, pp. 19-36. 

Williams, D. H. (1986). The epidemiology of mental illness in Afro-Americans. Hosp. Community Psychiatry, 37(1), 42-9. 

The stigma attached to mental illness is pervasive and affects the lives of people with mental illness. It makes the patient reluctant to come forward and ask for help. It makes rehabilitation after an episode of illness difficult. It contributes to the loss of self-esteem of the person who has the illness, a consequence that is particularly nefarious because it often blocks full recovery. Stigma also affects the members of the family, making them reluctant to admit that one of them has a mental illness and may need treatment, ft demeans institutions in which treatment is provided as well... 

The collaboration between mental health services and members of families of people with mental illness and their other carers is of essential importance in developing a useful and successful mental health service. Collaboration with carers is not in existence in many of the Third World countries, and in places where it exists it is at present often restricted to a one-way communication of instruction of what the carers should do to assist in the realization of the treatment plan established by the medical practitioners. Advice from carers and information about the effects of treatment can both be of great value in the treatment of individual patients and in deciding the best use of medications and other treatments in health services in general. 

NIMH (2005). Treatment Research in Mental Illness Improving the Nation s Public Mental Health Care through NIMH Funded Interventions Research. Report of the National Advisory Mental Health Council s Workgroup on Clinical Trials. Washington, D.C. 

As nylon and the plastics revolution became a part of modern life, the figure of Carothers receded tragically into the shadows. The horror of his death, the social stigma attached to mental illness and suicide, and prevailing social codes that discouraged the discussion of personal tragedies contributed to an atmosphere of secrecy that surrounded his life. As late as 1979, the Encyclopaedia Britannica credited Father Nieuwland with the discovery of Neoprene. 

American Psychiatric Association. Statistical Manual for the Use of Hospitals for Mental Illnesses. Albany, NY Boyd Printing Co., 3rd ed., 1923 4th ed., 1928. Source for the definitions of psychiatric problems in the 1920s. 

Gerald N. Grab. Mental Illness and American Society 1875-1940. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 1983. Source for history of psychiatry. 

Craft, Lynette L. and M. Daniel Landers, The Effects of Exercise on Clinical Depression and Depression Resulting from Mental Illness A Metaregression Analysis , Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 20 (1998) 339-57... 

Hudson, Christopher G., Socioeconomic Status and Mental Illness Tests of the Social Causation and Selection Hypotheses , American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 75, no. 1 (2005) 3-18 The Humble Humbug , The Lancet 2 (1954) 321 Hunter, Aimee M., Andrew F. Leuchter, Melinda L. Morgan and Ian A. Cook, Changes in Brain Function (Quantitative EEG Cordance) During Placebo Lead-in and Treatment Outcomes in Clinical Trials for Major Depression , American Journal of Psychiatry 163, no. 8 (2006) 1426-32 Hyland, Michael E., Do Person Variables Exist in Different Ways , American Psychologist 40 (1985) 1003-10 Hypericum Depression Trial Study Group, Effect of Hypericum Perforatum (St John s Wort) in Major Depressive Disorder A Randomized Controlled Trial , Journal of the American Medical Association 287 (2002) 1807-14... 

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