Friday, March 4, 2011

Changing the face of Mental Health treatment

I'm writing a gargantuan paper on inflammation, mental health, exercise and physical activity interventions, amino acids, HPA, trauma, and dietary interventions. This will only be based on abstracts of peer reviewed studies because I'm not qualified to judge the worth of the research itself, so my paper will do nothing but I hope inspire motivation for further research into more appropriate treatment models for mental health conditions.
 
If there is significant evidence that research based lifestyle interventions have clinical application to mental health recovery (there is)--- then I propose that we consider addressing the obstacles that mental health patients face with implementing lifestyle changes and do research on usability of programs--- if a program is clinically successful but only if patients are living in--- then it's not applicable to living out patients. We need to research ways to address the daily life dysfunction mentally ill have in participating in behaviors that will provide stability, nutrition, and recovery of brain functioning when ability to do self care has been compromised due to fatigue, low motivation, disorientation, spaciness, confusion, lack of focus, inattentiveness, and basic impairment of cognitive function.
 
My goal is to advocate for in home support, assistance with managing the difficulties of cooking, cleaning, organizing and creating routine--- or a pick up service for patients who have problems with timeliness and waking up in the morning, and continuing to show up, which is common in many forms of mental illness and impairs work performance and ability to hold jobs (and ability to successfully continue with a desired program or lifestyle change). Possibly we could provide semi-prepared meals with high fresh vegetable content, phytochemicals, fiber, protein and unsaturated fats that can be cooked in one pot or pan and easily cleaned up after--- either fully prepared for daily pick up--- or vegetables chopped and seasoned for weekly pick up.
  
I recognize the main reason such programs are unpopular is due to the economic cost of implementing them when we could just continue to pump meds into people and pharm companies and psychiatrists get paid and it's easy--- but it doesn't work. We aren't making these people better and we are ignoring the underlying medical conditions that are causing these symptoms.
 
(So far as pateints being disinterested in lifestyle changes--- this is another area worthy of research-- why the resistance and is there any way we can genuinely hear the obstacles people are facing with seeing lifestyle change as desirable and address those concerns with respect for individual choice and the desired results of the client/patient)
 
I'm not doing the research for this paper but my next thing will be to study the clinical significance of identifying struggling areas of the brain and doing physical and mental exercises that use that area of the brain in order to enhance functioning. Also research on the benefits of social relationships on health might call for some intervention in assisting people with creating meaningful relationships and encouraging social policies that increase peer relationships, empathy, and connectedness in school and family settings.
 
What will ultimately happen is that this research will probably generate some fairly successful (RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE) dietary and therapeutic programs that wealthy people can try out. If success is continually seen, my hope is that the use of such services will trickle down to lower income people. I wish I wasn't in the midst of right brained inflammation whatever brain disorder or this paper would paper would be so awesome and could probably convince the state mental hospital here to let me rework their dietary program. Of course if I didn't have these issues I would have an awesome degree by now anyways. Grrrrr.

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