Misconception about orthodox medical treatment of mental illness

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by admin - Jun 24, 2016

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Adeoye Oyewole, Consultant Psychiatrist, adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com

Mental illness is one of the most stigmatised illnesses in the whole world. Going through several cultural templates and their views about mental illness, one will discover that there are several damaging cultural perspectives and sanctions attached to mental illness.

One wonders about the source of the premise for these sanctions and the good they intend to serve. I want to believe that they arise from certain frustrations concerning the actual understanding of the illness and how it can be effectively treated.

Mental illness manifests with a very profound social coloration which cannot be hidden, hence the diagnosis and subsequently the treatment of mental illness carries with it a very strong social undertone viewed as any behavioural attitude that causes distress to the individual, the significant others and the society .

This is the basis of Parson’s concept of the sick role which I believe feeds the stigmatisation of persons living with mental challenges.

The society defines the criteria for identifying mental illness, also stipulates where and how interventions could be secured and ultimately determines the number of weeks healing should take place and as such any deviation from these stipulated parameters qualifies the particular illness and patient to be stigmatised.

This has always been the basis of my argument for effective advocacy against the stigmatisation of mental illness. It is amazing to note that even educated folks and medical workers also stigmatise the mentally ill.

These factors must be examined in an effective advocacy programme against the stigmatisation of mental illness and cultural influence on treatment modalities should be sanctioned.

This strategy by inference will promote patronage of orthodox medical treatment of mental illness since the society discredits the value of orthodox medical intervention for the mentally ill.

The cultural templates of the society has thus succeeded in coming up with several discrediting notions even among the educated against the benefits inherent in the orthodox medical intervention for the mentally ill.

The society formulates and uses its primitive sanctions and treatment approaches on persons with mental illnesses even though they are not effective. The cultural templates achieve this through the use of myths, superstitions and taboos with no empirical evidence.

One of the greatest inventions of the 20th century was the discovery of the antipsychotic drug-chlorpromazine which was found to be effective in the management of mental illness. Let us get a little practical here by imagining that folks who have a type of mental illness called schizophrenia often characterised by hearing voices of unseen individuals in clear consciousness, do not have an intervention that could drive away the voices and what would have become of such individuals and the society at large.

We would have had a large population of persons living under the torment of those voices with the attendant social problems.

Let us also consider those with severe mood disorders especially depressive illness where the individual is unduly sad without any cogent reason and may even feel that he/she is worthless, takes responsibility for any past deeds and looks at the future with hopelessness with attendant suicidal ideations that may culminate in suicide if effective intervention is not sought.

The availability of effective antidepressants has saved a lot of lives and improved their overall quality of life as they fulfill their basic social responsibilities.

Mental illness agreeably is not just about drug intervention alone as there are professionals in the mental health team who are trained to use psychological and social techniques to consolidate the gains of medical interventions or alone so that the patient enjoys wholesome and full recovery.

The orthodox mental health team recognises this and builds on the recovery achieved by the medications that have driven away the voices, eliminated negative thoughts, calmed down restlessness while guarantying restorative sound sleep.

.The facilities that the mental health team brings to the table is too profound to be casually dismissed since no other form of intervention is as wholesome and effective as the orthodox medical model for the treatment of mental illness.

There is no intervention without side-effects. Some of our drugs have treatable side effects which are not life-threatening and are reversible. Depending on the constitution, the patient may roll his/her eyeballs unconsciously for several minutes while the speech at that moment may be incoherent.

All of these side effects are recognisable and can be effectively handled by other drugs. When antipsychotic drugs are prescribed by those who are not properly trained, their victims may appear very dull due to poor handling of the adjustment of medications.

There is a popular claim that those drugs only suppress the symptoms and I query where the symptoms are suppressed to? There are several capable individuals in all walks of life who may be seeing mental health practitioners, and taking their medications as prescribed on a regular basis and fulfilling their social roles effectively in several ways.

The orthodox medical mental health intervention is effective and has a tested history. Its approach should be encouraged at all times.

PUNCH.

Early signs of mental illness

Articles

by admin - May 23, 2016

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Adeoye Oyewole, Consultant Psychiatrist, adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com

Mental illness is one of the most stigmatised illnesses in the world, especially in Africa. This attitude has serious social implications for affected persons. Many have been denied marriage and other employment opportunities even when they got better.

Educated folks, who know that there is treatment for mental illness like any other condition, often discriminate against such individuals. This belief has encouraged alternative methods of managing mentally challenged patients. Families would rather conceal information and sentence a relative with mental illness to spiritual cleansing instead of seeking orthodox help.

The mental health policy articulation and implementation suffer setbacks because we prefer to live in the denial of the reality of the illness. Alternative caregivers have flourished at the expense of the orthodox ones because they explore our cultural models.

Supernatural prescriptions of intervention such as exorcism, offering of sacrifices to the gods, prescribed prayers and rituals are some the unconscious psychological strategies we adopt to confront mental illness and its management on the continent.

The mandate for mental health practice in Africa and especially in Nigeria is to interrogate these alternative models and interrupt their adverse influences that have been reported to be responsible for increasing number of deaths among the mentally ill.

Our policy makers often bring what obtains in developed countries as framework forgetting that there is a need to interrogate this policy to accommodate our peculiarities. One aspect that is of importance is to get the public educated on the early symptoms of mental illness because our religious and social intuitions have masked its symptoms.

This is very important because research has established that the earlier an appropriate method of intervention is instituted, the better the outcome for such patients. But when the illness is allowed to fester for too long without intervention, the personality of the patient is gravely affected. The individual may become a shadow of him/herself.

When the illness is not identified early and appropriate orthodox treatment is not instituted, the patient may wreck more havoc in the community. A good of number of cases of murder, assault, suicide and other social crimes, such as substance abuse may be traceable to mental illness.

Several cases of marital instability and disrupted family life may be linked to mental illness in one of the spouses. A good number of our road traffic accidents may have been averted if the road safety officers were trained to identify drivers who may be under the influence of drugs.

Our schools cannot produce the best when mental health issues are not considered and adapted into the running of the curriculum. Productivity and overall performance of companies and organisations are hinged on the early identification and treatment of mental ill health among their employees.

In my opinion, mental well-being is the ultimate index of good governance. Even for our religion institutions, the mental well-being of the followers and believers is a verifiable gold standard of its effectiveness.

Mental illness occurs when there is malfunctioning of the human mind such as emotion, intellect, thought, cognition and mood. It could be due to predisposing economic, social physical or political factors. This disruption manifests in the mind in a way that ultimately causes distress to the individual without him/her knowing it.

It may disturb sleep; make the individual walk long distances aimlessly away from the house or make the individual spend more than usual time in prayer without sleeping.

Some may fast to the point of damaging their physical health. Others can suspect people without valid proofs. Some may show undue generosity, sadness, over religiosity and excessive concern over security or hygiene.

The guiding principle is that these manifestations cause distress to the individual in a way that s/he is not aware of it. The second point is that this abnormal functioning of the mind should be of concern to others like children, spouses, friends, relatives and even co-workers.

My article is for this group since the patients are not aware that their behaviour is abnormal. It is the responsibility of the others to consider this observation and explore appropriate intervention.

The last point is that such behaviours should alert response from the people whom the individual resides with irrespective of the intellectual, cultural or religious rationalisations of the mentally-ill patient.