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A Commentary on Treatment and Prevention of Mental Health

Stanwood Russell^{* *}Correspondence: Stanwood Russell, Department of Psychiatry, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Japan, Email:

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Description

Mental disorder is referred as a condition which impairs a person's behavior and prevents them from living a happy and healthy life. Mental illness is due to either overproduction or low production of neurotransmitters in brain. Some of the mental disorders include schizophrenia, depression, anxiety disorder, post-traumatic disorder, etc.

Mental illness has one of the highest infection rates of any disease. In a year, an estimated 18.1 percent (43.6 million) of adults in the United States aged 18 and more than 18 had a mental disease, with 4.2 percent (9.8 million) having a very debilitating mental condition. Neuropsychiatric diseases are the leading cause of disability in the United States, accounting for 18.7% of all years lost to disability and premature mortality.

Mental health can be conceived of as a spectrum that ranges from good to bad, and it can also be defined by the 'dual continuum concept,' which asserts that mental disease and mental health exist on different but related axes.

Treatment

Treatment from health care practitioner may be sufficient if you have a moderate mental disorder with well-controlled symptoms. In case of serious mental diseases like schizophrenia; psychiatric, physical, and social requirements are to be monitored. Psychiatric drugs can not cure mental disease, but they can often help to improve symptoms. Other treatments, such as psychotherapy, may be a benefit from the use of psychiatric medicines. Some of the most commonly prescribed psychiatric medications include anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medications, mood-stabilizing agents, anti-psychotic drugs, etc.

Psychotherapy is a form of treatment in which the therapist builds a relationship with the patient and reduces the symptoms of the mental illness. Psychotropic medications can be used as a supplement to treatment, but recovering from the mental illness is mostly due to therapist counselling and the response to that by the patient.

Brain-stimulation treatments are used in some cases to treat depression and other mental disorders, where the psychotherapy and drugs have not worked. Electroconvulsive therapy, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, deep brain stimulation, and vagus nerve stimulation are some of the treatments available.

Prevention

Prevention of Mental illness refers to the actions taken to reduce the chances of developing mental disorder. Mental health promotion and mental health prevention are frequently used interchangeably. Mental health promotion aims to strengthen protective factors and healthy behaviors that help to prevent the start of a diagnosable mental disease and lower risk factors which leads to the development of a mental disorder. It also involves creation of surroundings to promote the mental health and to maintain healthy lifestyles. Mental health prevention refers to minimization of the mental disorders in future by detecting the specific mental disorder now itself in a group of people.

Primary prevention deals to avoid the onset of disease. This can be done by preventing the risk behaviors/factors that lead to the cause of disease.

Secondary prevention deals with the reduction of the severity of the existing disease. This can be done by detecting the disease at the earlier stage and encouraging the personal strategies to treat the disease. This leads to the implementation of the good mental health.

Tertiary prevention includes the reduction of the mental illness caused due to long-term effects.