March 2, 2016, by Brooke Chaplan – The brain is one of the body’s most vital organs and just like other parts of our bodies, the brain is prone to disease and illness. Mental health deals not only with emotions but also the physical brain. Today, advances in mental health research are making conditions like depression, PTSD, and psychiatric disorders easier to treat.
Understanding How the Brain Develops
Mental illnesses can take many forms and are caused in many different ways. Some are genetically disposed like schizophrenia, and others like PTSD are caused due to traumatic and physical events. Still others are combinations of the two and come about from a variety of circumstances.
Researchers are closely inspecting how the brain develops during childhood to better understand how mental conditions can be treated and diagnosed. One breakthrough is the clue that young children with depression develop brains that differ in structure than those without. This research may hold the key to effectively treating and preventing many neurological conditions. Conditions like PTSD are now being looked at to see if childhood brings any precursors that could show if certain people are more susceptible or even genetically disposed to these kinds of mental illnesses.
Treating PTSD
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the more mysterious, but common mental conditions. It affects everyone from military personnel to the victims of physical and mental abuse.
Therapy is an often suggested treatment option. Patients with PTSD can sit down and discuss with therapists qualified with an online MSW degree what triggers their PTSD and what at-home remedies are being tried.
The difficulty in treating PTSD is that it can manifest in various ways and with differing symptoms for different individuals. The criteria for diagnosing PTSD increases as more information is discovered about this condition. Electric patches designed to deliver charge to certain areas of the brain have already shown promising preliminary results in minimizing the symptoms of PTSD.
There are also a range of medications that have been successful, and semi-successful at treating certain symptoms.
Linking PTSD with Physical Health
It is understood that mental illnesses have many influences on the body, but many are considered short-term effects. The reason for this uneven distribution of effects revolves around the lack of understanding for why they affect the body this way. Suffers of PTSD may experience sweating, nausea, and even vomiting. Researchers are making this long-term influence clearer. New research shows that treating mental illnesses along with the physical symptoms can have a positive effect. This may help to provide new avenues of treatment for other mental illnesses like depression.
Despite the amazing complexity of the human brain, some of its secrets are slowly being revealed as new research is conducted. New knowledge and research in mental illnesses leads to new concrete methods of protecting against the development of psychiatric disorders and reversing them. This may allow individuals afflicted by even the most traumatic disorders to one day live normal, happy and healthy lives.
Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most her time hiking, biking and gardening. For more information contact Brooke via Twitter @BrookeChaplan.