Catch mental health disorders before it turns worse

Lakshmi Santhosh | 10-June-2013

India needs a system for regular screenings for mental health conditions of people. If any disorders are diagnosed in the early stage, it will be easy to find a solution. And such a screening process will also help eradicate the stigma associated with mental illness

By Lakshmi Santhosh

When mental illness descends on us or a relative, the existing stigma and misinformation can cloud our ability to treat the condition. It is common for people to resort to religious ceremoniesor missthe symptoms of the disease altogether. People with treatable mental conditions are thrown out of their homes and left on the streets in both the US and India.

Since mental health disorders are often not diagnosed, the solution can be to incorporate mental health checkups into normal primary care. This solution was implementedby a team from the Centre for the Economics of Mental Health in London on rural populations in India and Pakistan. They screened individuals in these areas and found 12 per cent to 39 per cent in each group had a common psychiatric problem. Making thesecheckups a normal part of urban and rural life could help catch mental health disorders before they progress. Further treatment decisions could then be made early by the individual and their family. Also, if mental health checkups are a part of routine medical care, it could reduce the stigma associated with it.

While many of us feel sound in mind and body, anxiety or depression can set in after a traumatic event or change in life. For others,the diseases are more severe and have been a constant problem sinceyoung age. There is recent evidence that likelihood of certain psychiatric disorders is correlated to particular genetics. Jordan Smoller, MD, ScD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and his colleagues reported in The Lancet that autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia all are linked to common genetics in individuals, at least within European ancestry. It’s not clear what leads to these different manifestations of mental health and the pathway by which this genetic makeup increases risk.

Gender can also affect the types of disorders that could arise in an individual. Men and women share different burdens of mental illness. A report by the US Department for Health and Human Services shows that while women in the US experience post-traumatic stress at higher levels while men are more likely to begin substance abuse. The complexities of different mental health conditions require an approach that is considerate of boththe individual and the families affected. If these conditions do have a hereditary connection, then the implications can be even more significant for the family. Healthcare systems in the US and India need to acknowledge the prevalence of mental health disorders, some that are temporary such as postpartum depression or chronic such as bipolar mania. Implementing regular screenings for mental health conditions instead of waiting for symptoms to become severe can be the first step in addressing this problem.

(Lakshmi Santhosh is a freelance journalist. She has an undergraduate degree in Economics from UC Berkeley and is currently doing Master's in Biotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked for EC Media in Bengaluru and the San Francisco Business Times in California, US)

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