Treating Mental Illness

October 29th, 2011

Compare to cancer, diabetes and heart disease, mental illness is the most common illness among them. This is a condition that affects the brain that influences the way a person feels, act, think, behave or how a person relate to others and to his or her surroundings. A person with this condition should be treated to be able to cope with his or her life’s daily routines and demands. But the symptoms of this can be from mild to severe and still it depends on the type of mental illness of a person. This can affect people of any gender, age, education or income level or its cultural background. Although it affects both male and female, there are conditions like eating disorders that tend to occur more in females and other disorders like attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that is more common in children.

The cause of this is still unknown, but according to some research many of this conditions are caused by a combination of different factors; this are  genetic, biological, psychological and environmental factors . Genetic or heredity factors means mental illness runs in the family. It may be passed on from the parents to their children by genes. Our genes have instructions for the function of every cell in the body and that are responsible on how we look, think, act and many more. But still it doesn’t mean that if you’re mother or father have a mental illness you will have one. It means that you might get the condition if there is no affected member of the family. Experts presume that this condition is connected to problems in multiple genes. The interaction of the genes and other factors occurs on this disorder like psychological trauma and environmental stressors that can trigger or influence the illness of a person who has inherited it. As for biological factor, there are mental illnesses that have been connected to abnormal balance of certain chemicals in the brain that are called neurotransmitters. This helps the nerve cells in the brain to communicate to each other. And if these chemicals are not balance and not working properly the messages might not make it through the brain correctly that may lead to the symptoms of mental illness. There are some mental illness that are triggered by psychological trauma like the loss of a parent, friends or love ones, suffered during his or her childhood like severe emotional, physical or had been sexually abuse. And lastly, environmental factor, stress like death, divorce, dysfunctional family life, changing of schools or jobs and substance abuse may trigger a person who has a disorder who might be at risk for developing a mental illness.

This can be treated just like many chronic illnesses but requires an ongoing treatment. With this last two decades, there is much progress that has been made in treating mental illness. With this there are many mental conditions that can be treated with one or combination of different therapy, like medication, psychotherapy, group therapy, day treatment or partial hospital treatment, cognitive-behavior therapy and behavior modification. There are also other treatment that are available like alternative therapies such as massage, biofeedback and water therapy; creative therapies like art, music and play therapy; hypnotherapy; electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); and vagal nerve stimulation (VNS).  There are many people with mental illness that have been fully recover or able to successfully control their symptoms when it is early diagnosed and treated properly. Still there are some people that had become disabled due to its severe mental illness there are still many that are able to live full and productive lives.

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