Nowadays, around the world have increase number of mental illness for many reasons. Moreover, they are suffer from dieasese then they can be also dangerous to life as we see in the article "Mentally ill have reduced life expectancy, study finds" on BBC News (2011).
According to Dominic Hughes report in UK found that life expaectancy of people who suffering from serious mental ilness as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and serious depression was below average in UK 10 to 15 years by 77.4 years of men and 81.6 years for women. In this case antipsychotic drug and social could be blame. From statistics show that people with mental illness can have general health and survival if they have same standard with normal people "we cannot carry on tolerating the fact that people are dying from preventable illnesses, due to health system which treats mental health patients as second class citizens" said by Jane Harry.
Moreover, the studies found that psysical health od people with mental illness has been ignord by their doctor who concern about mental health only and prescribe medicine, even know that it has side effect with psysical health.
In my opinion, people with mental illness need more than treatment from doctor and medicine, they need someone to pay attention to them as member of family, friends, or normal people to take care both of mind and body. In fact, patients with mental illness has ignored by their families because people think mental illness is a disgrace, so they leave them alone. I think this is a main cause that patient with mental illness have lowwer life expectancy, because they do not have courage to fight with ill and do not want to lives. For this reason, family which has people with mental illness should be concern and cheer up them. Its can relieve and help them have a long life.
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Hughes.D (2011,May 18). Mentally ill have reduced life expectancy,study finds. BBC News. Retrieved May 20, 2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13414965
Wan
ReplyDeleteI think it's a nice idea that other family members should help their member who is suffering from mental illness. By the way,do you have any idea about people who have no relative or friend? If these people suffer from mental illness,who can help them? Therapists or drugs can not be a perfect solution for disturbed person because he has to live in a society, either way. Nobody can live alone as we see in MICE AND MEN written by J.Steinbeck.I wish all of us in the earth would be one big family so that everybody can be happy.
Wan
ReplyDeleteI think the solution of this problem is everybody has to support each other, start from doctor. In general patients who has mental illness problem, their psychical look is the same as normal people. It might answer the question why doctor didn’t take care of them as good as they can, because doctor assume, they’re alright.
Calm, understanding and forgiveness are important for the one who help to take care of sick people especially family members. They need to learn how to understand and handle with non sense idea which sometimes happen with patient, and should not let yourself get involved by depression.
Wan,
ReplyDeleteI like your post on this topic, which fits perfectly with what we have been reading in Quest this week.
Although they once did (when I was a child), I think Australians no longer see mentally ill family as a disgrace, but they probably still get neglected for more natural reasons: they require more care, and are less rewarding to be around. (Of course, just because those reasons might be very natural does not make the behaviour right.)
Kuriko,
ReplyDeleteI also thought that there were some connections with Steinbeck's novel.
I hope you are enjoying it. His very informal dialogue can be a challenge, but I think once you get over the first few pages of that, that it won't be a big problem.
There is a lot of action in chapter 3.
Wan, I agree with you, we really need more attention with the people who suffering mental illness because; this health disorder became increase around the world. Mental illness will be the second biggest cause of death and disability by 2020, according to the World Health Organization¹. In addition, persons with mental illness frequently encounter public stigma and may suffer from self-stigma, not only with yours families who think these kind the disorder is a humiliation. These persons need respect for leaving with dignity and security.
ReplyDelete¹www.irishhealth.com
Wan... I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, we should accept the fact that the person has a mental illness and understand them to engage in conversation and listen carefully, especially try not to become angry at your friend or family member when they do something wrong. Moreover, we should help metal patient stay active, such as invite her/him for walks, to the movies and other activities. Importantly, learning all you can about their disorder and its treatment so that you can more effectively cope, help, and keep your expectations realistic.
Meva reports that the doctors only give medicines to the illness patient. This is a revealing point of the weakness of the UK health system for people with serious mental illness because it means, the doctors does not know or not understand very well this kind of illness. The doctors needs to learns at the universities that not only medicines but psychologists, other health profession specialists for example masseurs to relax tension, families, friends, society in general can help and how. Also how to raise the families’ awareness to deal with this member of the family. Because like Kuriko said, it is important to be empathic, but it is not easy because this mental ill persons are different to most of the people and we can not easily predict their behaviour like Lenin in MICE AND MEN, George does not want to let him alone because he is afraid of Lenin”s behaviour. It is very easy to be afraid of them, because we do not know how to cope with them and also can be very tired to take care all the time, it is necessary that many people to support them.
ReplyDelete