Escuche esta historia
--:--
7:48
The 7 most common mental disorders
Mental disorders are one of the least debated topics today, especially because their presence connotes a personal imbalance, which can have a negative impact on society.
Despite massive misinformation, thousands of people diagnosed with a mental disorder are recorded daily. For this reason, it is good that you learn the 7 most common mental disorders.
What are mental disorders?
To start it is important that you understand what mental illnesses are.
So, according to the World Health Organization, a mental disorder is the combination of the affectation of thought, emotions and behaviors.
In addition, these diseases have an increasing incidence in the population, especially in adolescents and young adults.
This is how the different organizations have implemented a series of measures that help the population to prevent some diseases of the mind.
Similarly, when the diagnosis is made, it is the responsibility of public health institutions to provide the necessary guidance to the family nucleus, so that they can cope with the situation.
Also, the state must guarantee medical care and drug treatment.
Types of mental disorders
When it comes to the types of mental disorders you can find many ways to classify them on the internet. However, the most reliable is the one cited in the International Classification of Mental Disorders (ICD-10).
In case you did not know, the ICD-10 is an international and universal system, which assigns a code to each disease. Through this number, health personnel can handle the same concept language.
It is worth mentioning that mental disorders have their own ICD-10. Given that there are many diseases and subcategories to classify. In general, the ICD-10 groups them as follows.
F00-F09 Organic mental disorders: The different types of dementia are included.
F10-F19 Behavioral disorders due to psychotropic substances.
F20-F29 Schizophrenia, Schizotypal Disorder, and Delusional Disorders.
F30-F39 Mood disorders: Manic episodes, bipolar disorder, depressive episodes are part.
F40-F49 Neurotic disorders, secondary to stressful and somatoform situations: Anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder.
F50-F59 Behavioral disorders associated with physiological dysfunctions and somatic factors: Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, non-organic sleep disorders, non-organic sexual dysfunction.
F60-F69 Adult personality and behavior disorders: Habit disorders, sexual identity disorder.
F70-F79 Mental retardation
F80-F89 Disorders of psychological development
Likewise, there are another series of disorders that can appear during childhood or early adolescence.
What is the origin of mental illness?
There is no definite idea of why these disorders occur, but some risk factors, genetic predisposition, among other aspects that may be the origin of the disease, are known.
There are even neuroendocrine theories that try to explain the imbalance of certain neutral transmitters, so that mental alteration can develop.
Most common mental disorders
A more frequent mental illness is believed as those that have a higher incidence in a group of people.
It is important to mention that individuals who begin to present any symptoms suggestive of mental illness should be evaluated by a psychiatrist.
In relation to the foregoing, the clinical manifestations of mental illness are very florid and similar, so an expert evaluation is needed to confirm the diagnosis. Thus, some of the mental pathologies are.
Dementia
This syndrome has an organic settlement, in general, it is due to a chronic degenerative process of the brain.
The presence of this disease causes a deterioration of cognitive abilities. Basically, the person has deficits in memory, language, judgment, thinking, among others.
For its part, the symptoms that may be present is the inability to analyze new information, maintain attention on a stimulus.
Finally, to be a positive diagnosis for dementia the symptoms have to be present for more than six months.
Abstinence syndrome
The withdrawal syndrome is part of the behavioral disorders due to psychotropic substances.
It consists of a syndrome that occurs when there is an absolute or relative abstinence of a substance, mainly, when the individual has had an excessive consumption, prolonging already high doses.
Also, it is very common for our symptoms to disappear once the person has consumed the substance again.
Schizophrenia
This is perhaps one of the most well-known and feared mental illnesses or psychotic disorder by the population, since it encompasses a series of personal and interpersonal behavioral modifications, which are reason to call those who suffer from it as a "crazy" person.
However, in scientific terms schizophrenia is a distortion of the norms of perception, thought and emotions.
Additionally, the disease does not compromise intellectual capacity at the beginning of the picture, but it does over the years.
A characteristic of schizophrenia is the age of onset of the disease, which is usually during childhood and late adolescence.
One of the symptoms that the patient may present is auditory hallucinations.
For this reason, it is not recommended that third parties comment on these patients, because they can imagine hearing their voices giving instructions out of date from reality.
Diagnostic guidelines focus on the presence of one relevant symptom or two not-so-obvious symptoms for more than a month.
Bipolar disorder
A person is classified with bipolar disorder when he has more than two episodes in which his mood is significantly altered.
In this sense, when the mood extends to an extreme such as depression or mania, the presence of this serious mental disorder should be ruled out.
On the other hand, there is no predisposition for sex, both affect equally. In addition to this, the age of presentation can be varied, it can occur in childhood until old age.
Obsessive compulsive disorder
Surely, when you think of this disorder you think of people who have violent and inconsistent attitudes.
Obsessive compulsive disorder are compulsive acts repeated infinitely many times. What are those acts? Well, they are ideas, images, things or impulses that interrupt the thought of the individual.
At the same time, this disorder can be accompanied by depression. On the other hand, it can affect both men and women in the same proportion, and the disorder of the mind can start in childhood or early adulthood.
Hypochondriacal disorder
People who suffer from this mental illness persist in the possibility of presenting more than one physical alteration, that is, an organic pathology.
Usually, these patients are able to use the terminology of the disease, moreover, they need the exact diagnosis.
In turn, they do not accept confirmation by a doctor that there is no organic cause that explains the symptoms.
Now, the treatment for this disorder is medications and psychotherapy, especially at the beginning of the diagnosis.
Dissociative identity disorder
It is the existence of two or more identities in the same person, which is totally opposite and differ from each other, in relation to their interaction with the environment that surrounds them.
Similarly, this disease was previously known as multiple personality disorder.
As a curious fact, it is a disease that affects women more often than men.
Treatment is based on drug therapy and psychotherapy. The latter has the mission of integrating the multiple personalities.