Types of mental illness and its treatment. The impact of modern technological development and climate and economic changes on the increase in cases of mental illness. The cases differed depending on the type of mental illness. Through this article, we will learn about the types of mental illness and its treatment.
psychological diseases
- Mental illnesses are defined as diseases that affect a person’s behavior and actions and are a reflection of his defective psyche, which leads to the person often losing control of his feelings.
- Symptoms of mental illness appear through strange and negative behaviors that affect the person in his work, life, studies, and relationship with others.
- There are many types of mental illness and its treatment. There are diseases that are specific to adults and diseases that affect children. Each type has different symptoms and is diagnosed by a doctor.
Types of mental illnesses and their symptoms
There is a wide spectrum of psychological disorders that the human race can suffer from, and they can be divided into disorders that affect adults and diseases that affect children. As for the psychological diseases that affect adults, they are:
إقرأ أيضا:ما هو مرض الشيزوفرينيا … أشد أنواع الانفصام وأشهر أعراضها انظر حولك1- Depression
- Depression is one of the most common types of mood disorders, followed by bipolar disorder, where the sufferer has less interest in daily activities, and it affects the way he thinks and feels.
- The infection rate reaches 12%, and it can be contracted at any age, but the twenties are the most susceptible age group to infection.
- People with chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and strokes are also more susceptible to depression.
- This type of disorder must be taken care of; Suicidal thoughts increase in people with depression, or they may even think about killing others.
Symptoms of depression
Until an individual is diagnosed with depression; The patient must suffer from at least five of the symptoms that will be indicated for at least two weeks, and these symptoms must include the first or second symptom, and these symptoms are:
- That the person suffers most of his time from a depressive mood.
- Loss of the sense of pleasure in activities that cause joy and happiness.
- Constant change in appetite and weight, up or down.
- Feeling of insignificance among others or excessive feelings of guilt.
- Insomnia, inability to sleep, or sleeping too many hours.
- Lack of concentration.
- Feeling lethargic and tired.
- Excessive irritability and nervousness.
- The person may have recurring suicidal thoughts.
- These symptoms must not be due to causes resulting from the person’s addiction or other physical illness. Such as strokes, or excessive thyroid secretions, which have a negative impact on a person’s professional and social life.
2- Obsession
It is an excessive and abnormal disturbance in mood, in addition to the person’s excessive interest and inclination towards activities that he finds difficult to achieve, and a high increase in the person’s energy, and the person’s symptoms of mania continue to appear for a period of no less than a week.
إقرأ أيضا:كيف ابتعد عن العصبية المفرطة انظر حولكSymptoms of mania
To be diagnosed with mania, a person must suffer from at least three or four of the following symptoms, all of which are within the framework of a mood disorder:
- Distraction.
- Excessive sense of grandeur.
- Excessive tendency toward activities with difficult goals, whether social, practical, or sex-related activities.
- Increased feeling of insomnia.
- There is a crowding of thoughts.
- Speaking quickly and not controlling the order of thoughts.
- Excessive participation in activities that cause happiness, even if they involve a large percentage of risk, in addition to making decisions that are very reckless and result in uncalculated actions.
3- Schizophrenia
- It is a type of chronic psychological disorder that causes a person to have major changes in the way he thinks, feels, emotions, and behaves, and it can lead to social consequences that negatively affect the patient.
- In some cases, a patient with schizophrenia develops psychosis; Which represents a person’s complete separation from reality, and the incidence of schizophrenia represents 0.3%-0.7%.
Symptoms of schizophrenia
There are three groups that explain the symptoms of schizophrenia:
إقرأ أيضا:اختبار القلق والتوتر والاكتئاب – مقال انظر حولكPositive symptoms
- Positive symptoms that a person with schizophrenia may exhibit include hallucinations; When he alone sees or smells things that do not exist or are familiar, and that others do not perceive.
- The patient may listen to voices directing him to do things or warning him of danger that could befall him, and he lives tense and afraid all the time.
- Many patients with schizophrenia suffer from schizophrenia, meaning delusion, where the patient delusions a lot and has increased false beliefs.
- He imagines that there is another person controlling his mind, or believes that he himself is another person, and notices the patient behaving strangely and speaking incomprehensibly. A schizophrenic patient is usually treated with antipsychotic medications.
Negative symptoms
Negative symptoms experienced by a person with schizophrenia include:
- Indifference and loss of the sense of pleasure in beautiful things.
- He does not feel happy when doing activities that cause pleasure to a normal person.
- Rarely talking to others, and not being affected by sad things that greatly affect others.
- The patient feels empty or hollow.
- In addition to a lack of interest in social life, these symptoms can make the patient not respond to antipsychotic medications, and tend toward social isolation.
Cognitive symptoms
This type of cognitive symptoms may be unnoticeable in some patients with schizophrenia, but in others it is severe and clearly noticeable, and negatively affects study, work, and social life, which are:
- Weak attention and concentration.
- Impairment in memory and executive functions.
Mental illnesses that affect children
1- Mental disability
- Intellectual disability means mental retardation that some children suffer from since childhood. This problem causes severe weakness in the level of performance of social, cognitive and adaptive functions.
- The degree of disability is determined by measuring the percentage of weakness in the child’s adaptive abilities. The old medical method was based on the IQ score, which determines the percentage of mental disability.
- This old medical method was recently replaced by measuring the child’s adaptive abilities, and adaptation is the child’s ability to interact with others at all levels.
Symptoms of mental disability
A mentally disabled child suffers from the following:
- Significant deficits in intellectual functions; We see this in the ability to solve problems, plan, judge things, and learn.
- Obvious deficits in adaptive functions; Which are represented by forms of social participation, the ability to communicate, and self-care.
- The onset of symptoms is observed during the child’s development stage, from childhood.
- The disability usually affects speech.
- Intellectual disability, and there are standardized tests that determine its degree.
- Depends on others to perform life functions.
- Intellectual disability can be either mild, moderate, or severe and violent.
2- Specific learning disorder
- A child with specific learning disorders suffers from a decline in cognitive development in any academic field, and we see through the difficulties that the child faces while teaching him reading, writing, and mathematics.
- We see this with children who suffer from hyperactivity and attention deficit, and the incidence rate is higher for boys than for girls.
Symptoms of specific learning disorders
Symptoms of this disorder in children are:
- A significant weakness in academic skills, which are lower than those of other children at the same age.
- The beginning of this disorder occurs when the child enters school, and it increases as his age advances and the academic skills he desires to achieve increase.
- The educational skills most affected are: reading, writing, or arithmetic.
3- Communication disorders
It includes disturbances in speech and language, or the inability to communicate socially in the manner expected of a child at this age, which affects the child’s degree of academic achievement or his degree of adaptation to his surroundings.
Symptoms of communication strikes
The child suffers from the following:
- Difficulty in language, as the child finds it difficult to use the language either due to a lack of vocabulary he knows, his inability to form sentences, or a weakness in the ability to dialogue.
- A noticeable defect in the voice while speaking, as the child finds it difficult to make sounds, or to clearly articulate the voice while speaking.
- Stuttering.
- Noticeable problems in the child’s social communication abilities.
4- Attention deficit and hyperactivity
It is represented by the child’s inability to pay attention and focus, along with hyperactivity and impulsive behavior at a young age and during the child’s growth.
Symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
- There are symptoms that appear in a patient with hyperactivity accompanied by attention deficit, and there are no less than six symptoms, which are:
- Severe weakness in concentration on the closest objects, with complete inattention to details and careless mistakes.
- Difficulty in keeping the child focused on a specific thing.
- Lack of inclination to listen.
- Difficulty following instructions.
- Lack of interest in the system.
- Avoid tasks that require thinking.
- Losing things easily.
- The child is easily distracted.
- There are other symptoms of hyperactivity accompanied by impulsivity without symptoms of attention deficit, which are:
- He cannot sit in his chair for a period of time.
- Not inclined to quiet activities.
- Constantly moving hands and feet out of place.
- Constant running and moving on stairs in different ways, and the reason is the inability to remain calm in the place.
- Excessive talking.
- Answer before the question ends.
- Inability to wait.
- Interrupting others.
- Symptoms must persist for more than six months and appear in more than one place, such as school and home. Symptoms must appear before the age of twelve, and the symptoms must not result from any mental illness.
5- Autistic spectrum disorder
Autistic spectrum disorder is characterized by a child suffering from poor social interaction, poor ability to communicate socially, and repetitive, restrictive behaviors.
Autistic spectrum symptoms
A child with autism spectrum disorder suffers from the following:
- Difficulty in the ability to interact and communicate socially; It is represented by the inability to conduct a dialogue, or the inability to use communication skills such as eye contact, and not paying attention to his peers.
- Engaging in specific, repetitive behaviors, such as constantly clapping or having a tendency to do unusual things.
- These strange behaviors appear from the beginning of the growth and development stage.
- These symptoms cause the child to be disabled socially and practically.
Types of mental illness and its treatment
The types of mental illness and its treatment differ from one another, and to summarize what has been pointed out, there are the most common types, which we mention below:
1- Anxiety disorders
- Anxiety disorders appear in people in the way they respond to situations that are dominated by feelings of fear and terror, and there are many physical signs such as sweating and rapid heartbeat.
- Anxiety disorder is diagnosed by the person’s inappropriate reaction to the situation, and this is to know the degree to which the person has control over his reactions, or whether anxiety appears with his reactions or not.
- Anxiety disorders include types such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and phobia, which is a type of psychological illness and its treatment is determined by the doctor according to the case.
2- Mood disorders
It includes a number of disorders known as emotional disorders, which are represented by a constant feeling of sadness, a continuous excessive feeling of happiness for a period of time, or fluctuations from overwhelming happiness to extreme sadness.
The most common mood disorders are depression and bipolar disorder, which have been mentioned previously.
3- Mental disorders
Mental disorders are characterized by distorted consciousness, and the most common symptoms of mental disorders are auditory and visual hallucinations, and schizophrenia is a type of psychological illness that is treated with antipsychotic medications.
4- Eating disorders
Eating disorders include an extreme feeling of excess weight all the time and the accompanying obsessions and anxiety, the most famous of which are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Eating disorder is considered the most famous type of psychological illness and its treatment is determined by the doctor according to the case.
5- Personality disorders
- Some people suffer from personality disorders that appear in their extreme and inflexible behavior and cause them many problems in social participation, work, or school.
- Examples of this disease are antisocial personality disorder and persecutory personality disorder.
6- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is one of the types of psychological illness and its treatment is determined by the doctor, as people suffering from it suffer from constant thoughts and fears that make them care about certain rituals, and they suffer from permanent and compulsive obsessions, for example an obsession with cleanliness.
7- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
It is a mental illness that appears after experiencing a traumatic event such as sudden death or sexual assault. People with PTSD often experience persistent frightening thoughts and painful memories.
Sexual disorders
Disorders that have a negative impact on sexual desire, most notably impotence, include disorders. There is a large group affected by this psychological illness, which makes marital life difficult and more complicated.
1- Physical disorder
A person with somatoform disorder suffers from the delusion of being sick and that he feels pain all the time, even if there is no real illness for it.
2- Seizure disorders
Those who suffer from seizure disorders make strange sounds when experiencing a crisis, which are unusual, repetitive and uncontrollable bodily movements. Seizure disorders are considered a type of psychological illness and their treatment is determined by the doctor according to the case.
At the end of our journey with the types of mental illness and its treatment, mental illnesses need to pay attention to their symptoms, especially with the people closest to us, to confront the matter and resort to a doctor quickly to receive treatment or to alleviate the symptoms, with the importance of awareness of the types of mental illness and its treatment, which is certainly determined by the specialist doctor.