Mental Disorders

Mental illnesses are far more common than it is generally assumed. And the thing is that many mentally ill people do not consider themselves as ones, but even if we can guess about some trouble, the panic fear is recognized by a psychiatrist.

Mental illness (mental illness, psychosis) is a disease of the brain peculiar to humans. They manifest a variety of disorders of mental activity as productive, that is emerging beyond the usual mental activity (e.g., the emergence of certain ideas, which fully capture a person (delusions, hallucinations): patients see, hear or feel what they think is really there). Patients experience the loss or weakening of mental activity, as well as the total change of personality.

To establish the true number of people with mental illness is very difficult because not all of them seek psychiatric help. It is now established that up to 40% of the population have symptoms of any mental confusion. Mentally ill person needs regular psychiatric care (in our country this is the outpatient observation in psycho-neurological dispensaries). Approximately 5% of the population have severe mental illnesses, whose treatment should be conducted in a psychiatric hospital.

Nowadays, psychiatry is no longer engaged in punitive functions, so do not be afraid to consult a psychiatrist, because he can really help a person suffering from mental illness.

There are many classifications of mental illness around the world. But basically all mental illness can be divided into three groups: endogenous, exogenous, and mental development.

Disorders of human mental activity are always caused by violations of the brain. But not every violation leads to mental illness. We know, for example, that under certain nervous diseases, despite the fact that the damaging process is localized in the brain, mental disorders may not take place.

Mental illnesses, in comparison to the diseases of internal organs, mostly do not reflect adequate reflection of reality. For example, is a person does not recognize the familiar environment and take it for something else, and he sees the people around him as attackers or enemies, if this person, along with the actual perception is accompanied by visual and auditory hallucinations, if it covers no apparent cause for fear or state of unrestrained fun, then there is a distorted reflection of the real world and, consequently, abnormal behavior – an escape from imaginary enemies, aggressive attack on imaginary enemies, suicide attempts, etc.

Mental illnesses are diverse in their forms and degrees of severity. In addition to the cases where the mentally ill person is not aware of his illness, there may be other options: a critical self-assessment is only partially lost, or there is an ambivalent attitude toward his suffering (“I’m sick, but at the same time and in good health”), or if there is sufficient criticism identified the wrong man, not arising out of the situational behavior.

Mental illnesses are very common; the number of mental patients around the globe reaches 150 million, and due to the increase of life expectancy there is a tendency for this number to be increase. However, the emergence and development of psychosis in some cases due to a combination of hereditary predisposition to adverse external factors (infections, trauma, intoxication, traumatic situations in mind) may also take place. Intrauterine fetal damage due to illness and injuries during pregnancy can cause mental retardation of children, epilepsy and other mental illnesses.

Psychiatric disorders are associated with the disorder of the central nervous system. The human brain controls perception (vision, hearing), memory, thoughts, speech, balance, appearance and expression of feelings (emotions), respiration, etc.

Any of these functions and their synchronous operations may be impaired as a result of mental illness. On the other hand, chronic mental illnesses are similar in a sense, with any other chronic illness, such as cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Today, the main cause of mental disorder has been identified, but there are plenty of circumstances that provoke the onset of disease, that improve or worsen over the mental illness.

Signs of mental illness are:

• The emergence of the changes in everyday behavior (excess or lack of sleep, appetite, appearance of absentmindedness, lethargy or excessive excitement, that is the features that are not characteristic of the before before)
• Difficulty in thinking and communication
• Mania, obsessive-compulsive disorder (persistent and unwarranted attempt to expand
• Any activity that is not appropriate for the place and time, etc.)
• Negativity, including the refusal of assistance
• Alcohol and drug abuse
• Long-term depression
• Delusions and hallucinations
• Inability to cope with daily activities
• Mood swings, etc

The most common mental illnesses are manic-depressive psychosis and schizophrenia.

Manic-depressive psychosis –is a periodic mood swing from a strong excitation and euphoria to depression and passivity.
Schizophrenia is a generic name of a group of psychoses during which the state is characterized by abnormal thinking, behavior and emotions.

It is important to know that chronic mental illness always comes in waves: the aggravation – this is an increase, or “attack” of the disease and its remission. It is a favorable period, when only minor fluctuations in the state appear.