Mental illness treatments

Past psychiatric history (PPH) a listing of prior episodes of mental illness, treatment, hospitalizations. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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... 

Invent medicines that go beyond treatment to provide cure or prevention of life-limiting conditions and diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer s disease, mental illness, and diabetes. 

The discovery of psychopharmacological medications was revolutionary because they provided a means of treating illnesses that were otherwise intractable. With the exception of electroconvulsive treatments for severe depression, there were no medical treatments for disorders that did not respond to psychotherapy. Once established, the drugs led to an ongoing search for more effective and safer medications. A second reason for their revolutionary status is that they furthered understanding of mental illnesses and normal brain function. Investigations of their therapeutic mechanisms led to theories of the neurochemical bases of mental illnesses. 

The discovery of pharmaceutical medications for the treatment of mental illnesses has revolutionized treatment and our understanding of the brain. Several herbal medications have been employed historically for the... 

Goodman found still another series of atropine coma treatments for mental illness in the April 1963 issue of the Bulletin of Health Medical Science and History. Authors R. Dohnierski, M.D. and S. Smoczynski conducted their therapeutic studies in the Department of Psychic Diseases of the Medical School in Gdansk, Poland. 

No attempt will be made to give an overview of the main pathways of the several dozen neurotransmitters, neuromodulators and co-transmitters which are possibly involved in the aetiology of mental illness. Instead a summary is given of the relevant pathways involved in the synthesis and metabolism of those transmitters which have conventionally been considered to be involved in the major psychiatric and neurological diseases and through which the psychotropic drugs used in the treatment of such diseases are believed to operate. 

A prisoner can be compelled to take psychiatric medication in only two circumstances. First if he suffers from a serious mental illness that renders him mentally incompetent to make his own medical decisions, prison medical authorities are permitted to forcibly treat the prisoner, so long as the treatment is in the best interests of the prisoner and complies with due process. Second, a prisoner whose mental illness leads him or her to engage in dangerous behavior that threatens to harm other prisoners or prison staff, may be forcibly treated with psychotropic medication.This ruling is based on the unique safety and security issues within prisons. 

O ur own use of prisoners, the institutionalized retarded, and the mentally ill to test malaria treatments during World War II was generally hailed as positive, making the war everyone s war. Likewise, in the late 1940 s and early 1950 s, the testing of new polio vaccines on institutionalized mentally retarded children was considered appropriate. Utilitarianism was the ethic of the day. ... 

The French physician, Jacques Joseph Moreau, remains the most-cited connection between cannabis and the art community. Moreau first used hashish while traveling through the Middle East in the 1830s. He assumed that cannabis-induced sensations might model the hallucinations and delusions common in psychotic individuals. He had hoped that this research might help the treatment of the mentally ill. The outspoken hedonist and popular novelist, Theophile Gautier assisted Moreau in this research. He not only participated himself, but he also recruited other members of Frances artistic community. This group of hedonists and experimenters met monthly in an old mansion in Paris which was known at the time as the Club Des Hachichins (Hashish Club). For historical reviews on cannabis, see Abel and Mechoulam. ... 

This drug is primarily used for supportive therapy of patients suffering from chronic mental illnesses after treatment in the hospital. It is suitable for use in ambulatory practice because of the lack of expressed hypno-sedative effects. Synonyms of this drug are imap, redeptin, and others. 

The burden of mental illness has traditionally been underestimated worldwide. Despite treatment advances, major depressive disorder (MDD) is still a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. In fact, depression was the fourth leading cause of disease burden in the world in 1990, and is projected to be the second leading cause of disability by 2020. In the United States alone, it causes billions of dollars annually in direct and indirect medical costs and losses in productivity. It is now known that patients with MDD may experience both psychological and medical complaints, including pain, which underscores the severity of impact of MDD on the health-care system. 

My mother is mentally ill. She s never been diagnosed, she s never sought treatment. She doesn t even go to the doctor for normal routine visits. But she would do things. .. like when my parents would fight she would keep my father up for days at a time. Every... 

Once people have made the fundamental decision to continue on medications, the question becomes how best to live with their new partner how to reach accommodations that will make the relationship healthy and satisfying. The shift in emphasis from whether to how best to maintain a medication relationship solidifies their investment in the biomedical model of mental illness and its claim to appropriate treatments. While many may still dream about a future free of pills, by this point they have likely made a lifelong commitment to drug therapy. The decisive moment comes with the realization that I ve accepted now that this is the way I am. This [using medications] is what I ll need to do for the rest of my life. ... 

Psychiatric treatment of new illnesses has accelerated since the 1980s. Whereas psychiatry traditionally had been dominated by a psychodynamic perspective on illness, the field has turned its back on that tradition in favor of predominantly biological definitions of mental illness. Critics of this shift focus their attention on the social factors that have led psychiatrists to the prescription pad. One can only express wonderment at the discovery of so many new brain diseases since 1980. The bible of psychiatric diagnoses, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, has now been revised three times since 1953, most recently in 1994. The first two editions classified illnesses in accordance with the psychodynamic model prevalent at the time. Conditions warranting psychiatric treatment were understood as disorders of the mind. Then, in the 1980s, the language of psychotherapeutic disorder abruptly disappeared and was replaced by... 

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