Treatment Of Mental Health Disorders

Chronic intake, the delayed onset of action, drug resistance and numerous side effects force the researchers to look for the new, safe antidepressant strategies (1, 2) with rapid onset and longer time of action.

The shutdown of state mental hospitals and lack of available financial and institutional resources force mentally ill people to the United States Judicial System for mental health. Every year thousands of people are arrested for various crimes and they are sent to jail. Sixteen percent of these people have some type of mental health problem (Public Broadcasting System , 2001). When we consider that the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world at 2.2 million, this number is staggering (Anasseril E. Daniel, 2007). This is about 1% of the entire population of the United States. There are many reasons as to why the situation has taken such a bad turn and when the history of the treatment of mental illness is examined one can see how the situation developed into the inhumane disaster it is today.

There are still several options for treatment that you must choose from, as well as having to deal with side effects that accompany each treatment. Of all the treatments, antidepressants tend to have the most side effects. Some of the side effects common to all three types of antidepressants are: anxiety, vomiting, confusion, chest pain, blurred vision, irritability, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, weight gain, headache, and nervousness (Cheung et al. 2003, Vanderkooy et al. 2002). Some other, more severe, side effects are difficulty urinating, decreased appetite, heart complications, and suicide (Simon and Stern 2003 - Review). It is the last side effect, suicide, which has recently caused some controversy within the medical field. With recent research showing a correlation between antidepressants and suicide, as well as the FDA ordering warning labels for suicide on antidepressant medication, physicians have to be careful prescribing the drugs, especially to children and adolescents.

Due to the harmful side effects of antidepressants, other forms of coping and dealing with depression should be implicated. Using tricyclic antidepressants as a last resort is an option that should be considered only after trying other forms of therapies such as cognitive and behavioral treatment, group therapy, and psychodynamic therapy. Cognitive and behavioral therapies focus on trying to change the behavior of the patient instead of focusing on the past and root issue of the problem. “The main idea of behavioral therapy is that people who are rewarded for the wrong things and punished for positive acts end up behaving in ways that don’t serve them well” (Wolff 61). Another equally effective aid for depression is the most commonly known type of therapy, psychodynamic therapy; psychodynamic therapy works by setting an example of a healthy

Lastly, what effects to antidepressants have on mood, behavior, and suicidal tendencies? In her article, ‘The Hidden Harm of Antidepressants’, Diana Kwon, a science writer with a Master’s degree for McGill University in neuroscience, she reviews several studies about the use of antidepressants, and had found the safety data on some of these drugs have been withheld from the public. She mentions research done in Copenhagen by some researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Center, and how they discovered that “pharmaceutical companies were not presenting the full extent of serious harm in clinical study reports…” (Kwon para 2). These clinical study reports are then used by people at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve or deny new

The common denominator in the treatment of all of these conditions is antidepressant medications. The first classification of drugs that doctors usually use are SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. The way they work is not completely known, but it is thought that they limit the reabsorption of serotonin into the presynaptic cell which increases the extracellular level of the serotonin. They are used for symptoms of moderate to severe depression, but are shown to be more effective in more severe cases. They are also known to have fewer side effects than other classifications of antidepressants. The list includes fatigue, dry mouth,

Depression is the lack of the chemical compound C10H12N2O or Serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, made in the brain to help relay messages from one area or the brain to the other. As a result of serotonin being released throughout one's entire body it is believed to influence a majority of the bodies functions. (WEBMD.) Antidepressants alter the level of serotonin in the person's body, however, if one has excessive serotonin the outcomes could result in mania, agitation, and sometimes even death. Those outcomes are the reason that many doctors suggest going to therapy before prescribing an

According to the DBSA in the US alone depression affects 6.7% of adults. This is approximately 14.8 million people who are diagnosed yearly. Depression puts you at a risk four times higher than that of a non depressed person for a heart attack. The majority of depressed peoples are women. In the medical world there are many techniques to combat depression. There are many forms of prescription antidepressants including; selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), atypical antidepressants, tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). Thanks to Ed Likovich, Kasey Russell, Richard Schwartz, Jacqueline Olds and Tom Hayes there is another form of prescribed antidepressant that we now know as Sunsprite.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, antidepressants, are the most commonly prescribed medications in America where about one of ten Americans are prescribed to them. Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, a Harvard catalyst reports on the safety of these highly prescribed antidepressant drugs popularly known as: Paxil, Prozac, Luvoz, Zoloft, and Celexa; saying these drugs can be very dangerous when taken in

Pharmaceuticals are a very popular method of curing depression. Although they are popular these drugs show little to no progress in curing depression. In the article, "Taking Anti-Depressant Medication: A Qualitative Examination of Internet Postings,” proves this. The article gives accounts of multiple patients who have taken the medication and recorded their results. One patient states, “It seems like I’m about five times as anxious/depressed as I was pre-Paroxetine”. (353). Research proves that pharmaceuticals do not help individuals with their depression, but in fact cause it to worsen. The studies shows that many individuals receive a

Scientists and Doctors studies’ show that 4 percent of those taking antidepressants had an increase in suicidal thoughts, compared with 2 percent of those taking sugar pills. After seeing those studies, the FDA (Food

Ms. A is a 28-year-old married, executive who sees the clinician for symptoms over the last three months. Ms. A experiences trouble sleeping and nervousness. Ms. A states she is in good health and used to use substances, but has not used any substances in the last five years. She has had a 15-pound weight loss and fatigue. She has worrisome thoughts that her husband will leave her after his last business trip. She is irritable and restless, and states that even when she is in a relationship, she has feelings of emptiness. (The case study, n.d.).

Depression is the fourth leading cause of disease burden worldwide and is expected to show a rising trend over the next 20 years. Depression is associated with a marked personal, social and economic morbidity, loss of functioning and productivity, and creates significant demands on service providers in terms of workload. Although pharmacological and psychological interventions are both effective for major depression, antidepressant drugs remain the mainstay of treatment. During the last 20 years, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have progressively become the most commonly prescribed antidepressants. Sertraline, one of the first SSRIs introduced in the market, is a potent and specific inhibitor of serotonin uptake into the presynaptic

The first step to treating many of these new cases of depression is the prescription and use of antidepressant medication, however this has cause a mass flooding of our society with unnecessary prescription drugs. Due to the ease of treatment, primarily with prescription drugs, and the large range of severity in depression is often over diagnosed, adding to the problem.

Prior to the 1950s main way of treating depression was via barbiturates and amphetamines, however in the 1950s Iproniazid the first monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) and Imipramine the first tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) were developed and found to have more antidepressant activity compared to the previous barbiturates and amphetamines. [1] [2]