Download Mental Disorders

Mental Disorders are Disabling
The burden of mental illness on health and productivity in the
United States and throughout the world has been underestimated.
Data developed by the massive Global Burden of Disease study,1
conducted by the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and
Harvard University, reveal that mental illness, including suicide,2
ranks second in the burden of disease in established market
economies. (the U.S.)
Mental illness emerged from the Global Burden of Disease study
as a surprisingly significant contributor to the burden of disease. The
measure of calculating disease burden in this study, called Disability
Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), allows comparison of the burden
Percent of Total DALYs*
All cardiovascular conditions
18.6
All mental illness**
15.4
All malignant diseases (cancer)
15.0
All respiratory conditions
4.8
All alcohol use
4.7<
All infectious and parasitic diseases
2.8
All drug use
1.5
*Disability-adjusted life year (DALY) is a measure that expresses years of life lost to
premature death and years lived with a disability of specified severity and duration
(Murray & Lopez, 1996). **Disease burden associated with “mental illness” includes
suicide. DALYs account for lost years of healthy life regardless of whether the years
were lost to premature death or disability. The disability component of this measure
is weighted for severity of the disability. For example, major depression is equivalent
in burden to blindness or paraplegia, whereas active psychosis seen in schizophrenia
is equal in disability burden to quadriplegia. ( http://www.mentalhealth.com/)
In short, mental illnesses contribute to a loss in quality of life.
People are less likely to obtain optimal health physically,
mentally, and socially if they are suffering from any form of
mental illness.
Mental Illness, disorder characterized by disturbances in a person’s thoughts,
emotions, or behavior. The term mental illness can refer to a wide variety of
disorders, ranging from those that cause mild distress to those that severely impair a
person’s ability to function. Mental health professionals sometimes use the terms
psychiatric disorder or psychopathology to refer to mental illness.
The Experience of Mental Illness
Severe mental illness almost always alters a person’s life dramatically. People with
severe mental illnesses experience disturbing symptoms that can make it difficult to
hold a job, go to school, relate to others, or cope with ordinary life demands. Some
individuals require hospitalization because they become unable to care for
themselves or because they are at risk of committing suicide.
The symptoms of mental illness can be very distressing. People who develop
schizophrenia may hear voices inside their head that say nasty things about them or
command them to act in strange or unpredictable ways. Or they may be paralyzed
by paranoia—the deep conviction that everyone, including their closest family
members, wants to injure or destroy them. People with major depression may feel
that nothing brings pleasure and that life is so dreary and unhappy that it is better to
be dead. People with panic disorder may experience heart palpitations, rapid
breathing, and anxiety so extreme that they may not be able to leave home. People
who experience episodes of mania may engage in reckless sexual behavior or may
spend money indiscriminately, acts that later cause them to feel guilt, shame, and
desperation.
Other mental illnesses, while not always debilitating, create certain problems in
living. People with personality disorders may experience loneliness and isolation
because their personality style interferes with social relations. People with an eating
disorder may become so preoccupied with their weight and appearance that they
force themselves to vomit or refuse to eat. Individuals who develop post-traumatic
stress disorder may become angry easily, experience disturbing memories, and have
trouble concentrating.
Experiences of mental illness often differ depending on one’s culture or social group,
sometimes greatly so. For example, in most of the non-Western world, people with
depression complain principally of physical ailments, such as lack of energy, poor
sleep, loss of appetite, and various kinds of physical pain. Indeed, even in North
America these complaints are commonplace. But in the United States and other
Western societies, depressed people and mental health professionals who treat them
tend to emphasize psychological problems, such as feelings of sadness,
worthlessness, and despair. The experience of schizophrenia also differs by culture.
In India, one-third of new cases of schizophrenia involve catatonia, a behavioral
condition in which a person maintains a bizarre statue-like pose for hours or days.
This condition is rare in Europe and North America.
With appropriate treatment, most people can recover from mental illness and return
to normal life. Even those with persistent, long-term mental illnesses can usually
learn to manage their symptoms and live productive lives.
Attitudes towards Mental Illness
In most societies mental illness carries a substantial stigma, or mark of shame. The
mentally ill are often blamed for bringing on their own illnesses, and others may see
them as victims of bad fate, religious and moral transgression, or witchcraft. Such
stigma may keep families from acknowledging that a family member is ill. Some
families may hide or overprotect a member with mental illness—keeping the person
from receiving potentially effective care—or they may reject the person from the
family. When magnified from individuals to a whole society, such attitudes lead to
under-funding of mental health services and terribly inadequate care. In much of the
world, even today, the mentally ill are chained, caged, or hospitalized in filthy, brutal
institutions. Yet attitudes toward mental illness have improved in many areas,
especially owing to health education and advocacy for the mentally ill.
Social & Economic Costs
Mental illness creates enormous social and economic costs. Depression, for example,
affects some 500 million people in the world and results in more time lost to
disability than such chronic diseases as diabetes mellitus and arthritis. Estimating the
economic cost of mental illness is complex because there are direct costs (actual
medical expenditures), indirect costs (the cost to individuals and society due to
reduced or lost productivity, for example), and support costs (time lost to care of
family members with mental illnesses). One study estimated that in 1985 the
economic costs of mental illness in the United States totaled $103.7 billion. Of this,
treatment and support costs totaled $42.5 billion, which represented 11.5 percent of
the total cost of care for all illnesses.
Another method of estimating the cost of mental illness to society measures the
impact of premature deaths and disablements. Research by the World Health
Organization and the World Bank estimated that in 1990, among the world’s
population aged 15 to 44 years, depression accounted for more than 10 percent of
the total burden attributable to all diseases. Two other illnesses, bipolar disorder and
schizophrenia, accounted for another 6 percent of the burden. This research has
helped governments recognize that mental illnesses constitute a far greater
challenge to public health systems than previously realized.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566888_1/Mental_Illness.html