Mental Health

It is not as important to dwell on the 'meaning of mental health, than the importance to find the cures for the mental ailments that our present generation is becoming prone to.

It is indeed sad to know that even today when we have stepped in the 21 st century people have prejudices pertaining to mental health. Shrouded by misconceptions and stigmas people are apprehensive to go to the doctor in order to find out a cure for their mental sufferings. Madness is still the most feared mental illness. As such people avoid consulting a physiatrist for fear of a stigma. It is only in the extreme case of mental illness that a person is referred to a mental doctor.

This kind of attitude has led to the rapid increase in the number of the patients of mental health. This condition can be substantiated by citing a survey report conducted by the World Health Organization. According to this report the mental disorders of a large magnitude go largely untreated in the developing countries. A major chunk of 75 to 80 % of the mentally ill people goes untreated. Either due to lack of knowledge or due to lack of resources, they are left untreated in the developing countries. This kind of a scenario for once can be imagined. But what about the developed countries where also there are about 35 to 50 % of untreated mentally sick patients. These developed countries are held in high reverence as the epitome of knowledge, development and success. So what can be the excuse? It's not possible that all the untreated patients are poor or ignorant, especially in the developed countries.

Embarrassment, ignorance and sometimes the lack of resources lead to the condition of untreated mental disorders. In order to restore a person's mental state to normal there is no other way other than to take help from the medical science. It is not possible to envelop one from the mental ailments as one does in case of the physical ones. The mental ailments catch people unawares. Sometimes there are no apparent symptoms of any mental ailment while at others there are. So when there is any visible sign of any unusual mental behaviour proper psychiatric help is the only option. To have a good mental health it is highly desirable to take proper treatment as in the case of physical illness.

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