By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    How Not to Become a Victim of Medical Scams
    How Not to Become a Victim of Medical Scams
    December 22, 2021
    11 Ways You Can Care for Your Elder Family Members Health
    11 Ways You Can Care for Your Elder Family Members Health
    April 6, 2022
    How Can Brain Injury Lead To Dangerous Long-Term Effects?
    How Can Brain Injury Lead To Dangerous Long-Term Effects?
    August 30, 2022
    Latest News
    Clean Your Mattress Properly to Avoid Common Health Issues
    March 29, 2023
    5 Benefits Of HIPAA-Compliant Answering Services
    March 28, 2023
    3 Ways To Deal With Health Issues In Cities With High Pollution
    March 22, 2023
    What Tools Should Your Caregiver Have?
    March 22, 2023
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    Intellect Neurosciences Files New Patent Applications for Immunotherapy Methods in Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease
    February 11, 2012
    Government Pays Bonuses for Increasing Medicaid Expenditures
    August 26, 2017
    A New Approach to Wellness From Virgin HealthMiles (transcript)
    March 9, 2012
    Latest News
    What Are Bioidentical Hormones Made With?
    March 23, 2023
    Cover Medical Costs of Child Dog Bites with Legal Specialists
    March 23, 2023
    3 Ways to Improve the U.S. Healthcare System By 2030
    March 14, 2023
    6 Steps To Ensure Speed And Efficiency Of Clinical Studies
    March 14, 2023
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Mental Illness More Malignant than Melanoma
Share
Sign In
Notification Show More
Latest News
healthy travel tips when visiting Australia
7 Essential Tips to Stay Safe and Healthy Visiting Australia
News
health risks of dirty mattress
Clean Your Mattress Properly to Avoid Common Health Issues
Health
eligble for NDIS?
Are You Eligible For NDIS? How To Apply
News
upgrade to your nursing career
4 Pertinent Ways to Upgrade Your Nursing Career
Nursing
career in nursing
8 Keys to A Fulfilling & Successful Career in Nursing
Career
Aa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Aa
Search
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Specialties > Mental Illness More Malignant than Melanoma
Specialties

Mental Illness More Malignant than Melanoma

Rhona Finkel
Last updated: 2012/11/29 at 9:31 AM
Rhona Finkel
Share
9 Min Read
SHARE

If you throw mental illness and addiction into one cesspool, take the graduated weight for that side of the equation, and then go about seeing how your second side fares, you might find yourself arguing that mental illness is more disabling even than cancer, with no uncertain rooms for margin.

Think I’ve totally lost my gourd? Well, let’s take a look at what happens when we’ve got the same sufferer staring down mental illness and addiction from one corner of the test tube, and your regular dread physical illnesses from another angle.  It’s worse than you might imagine.

If you throw mental illness and addiction into one cesspool, take the graduated weight for that side of the equation, and then go about seeing how your second side fares, you might find yourself arguing that mental illness is more disabling even than cancer, with no uncertain rooms for margin.

Think I’ve totally lost my gourd? Well, let’s take a look at what happens when we’ve got the same sufferer staring down mental illness and addiction from one corner of the test tube, and your regular dread physical illnesses from another angle.  It’s worse than you might imagine.

More Read

HVAC filter

HVAC Air Filters Are Crucial for Reducing Allergy Symptoms

What’s The Difference Between Sleep And Sedation Dentistry?
The Evolution of Mental Health Technology Helps Treat OCD
What Is the Average Cost of Invisalign Treatments?
Diagnosing and Finding the Best Treatments for Acne Scars

Researcher Joanna Frketich doesn’t sidle around the topic and would rather tell the truth about the comparison between mental and physical illness than offer false hope that all will be well. It’s all harsh, but her statements have the legs to carry them.

The study opens exactly like this:

“Mental illness and addiction steal more years of life than cancer and infectious disease but a provincial study by a McMaster researcher finds few of those patients get the help they need.

‘“The bottom line is that when you talk about burden of disease for mental health and addictions, it’s higher than virtually everything else,’” said Dr. John Cairney coauthor of the report and associate professor of family medicine, psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences at McMaster University. “When you look at the budget, much less money is allocated to mental health than it is to other disease conditions. That has been the case for some time.”

[I want to add in the next two lines, because I feel they say a lot about the state of our treatment affairs in this country. Here I go:]  ”In spite of this, treatments are underutilized and prevention is lacking.

“While effective treatments exist for mental illness and addiction, only a small proportion of affected individuals receive them,” concludes the report. “Given the significant burden, there is a need to consider population-based prevention, promotion and treatment strategies.”

“The number of years of life lost is 1.5 times that of cancer and more than seven times that of infectious disease, according to the study published Wednesday by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Public Health Ontario (PHO).”

Oh, but they’re not done  yet. They’ve got a ‘sidebar’ which isn’t very sidebar-ry, but is very telling about how serious the situation we’re in is.

“Sidebar: THE BURDEN OF MENTAL HEALTH

• The five conditions with the highest burden are: depression, bipolar disorder, alcohol use disorders, social phobia and schizophrenia.

• Depression is the most burdensome condition — worse than lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers put together.

•  Alcohol use disorders contributed to 88 per cent of the total number of deaths attributed to these conditions.”

It’s too big for us anymore just to close our eyes and not inhale when we’re around it. We need to face phobias, depressions, disabilities, dysfunctionalities–all, head on.

According to their ‘paper,’ there are some more facts about mental illness we should all know. For example it pays to know that

  • According to the World Health Organization, unipolar depression was the third most important cause of disease burden worldwide in 2004. Unipolar depression was in “eighth place in low-income countries, but at first place in middle- and high-income countries.”
  • In a nationally representative face-to-face household survey, 6.7% of U.S. adults experienced a major depressive episode in the past 12 months.

Their paper has more research on some harsh facts people would rather not be faced with:

  • Anxiety disorders, which include panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, and separation anxiety disorder, are the most common class of mental disorders present in the general population.
  • The estimated lifetime prevalence of any anxiety disorder is over 15%, while the 12-month prevalence is more than 10%.
  • Prevalence estimates of anxiety disorders are generally higher in developed countries than in developing countries.

The paper continues to address other disorders, moving on to bipolar disorder:

“The National Comorbidity Study reported a lifetime prevalence of nearly 4% for bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is more common in women than men, with a ratio of approximately 3:2. The median age of onset for bipolar disorder is 25 years, with men having an earlier age of onset than women.”

  • “In an insured population, 7.5% of all claimants with behavioral health care coverage filed a claim, of which 3.0% had bipolar disorder. Persons with bipolar disorder incurred $568 in annual out-of-pocket expenses—more than double the expenses incurred by all claimants. Annual insurance payments were greater for medical services for persons with bipolar disorder than for patients with other behavioral healthcare diagnoses.
  • The inpatient hospitalization rate of bipolar patients (39.1%) was greater than the 4.5% characterizing all other patients with behavioral health care diagnoses.
  • Bipolar disorder has been deemed the most expensive behavioral health care diagnosis, costing more than twice as much as depression per affected individual. Total costs largely arise from indirect costs and are attributable to lost productivity, in turn arising from absenteeism and presenteeism.
  • For every dollar allocated to outpatient care for persons with bipolar disorder, $1.80 is spent on inpatient care, suggesting early intervention and improved prevention management could decrease the financial impact of this illness.

What about “frequent mental distress?”

Frequent Mental Distress is  defined based on the response to the following quality of life question, ‘‘Now thinking about your mental health, which includes stress, depression, and problems with emotions, for how many days during the past 30 days was your mental health not good?’’ Frequent mental distress is identified as a report of 14 or more days of poor mental health in the past 30 days.

  • 9.4% of U.S. adults experienced Frequent Mental Distress (FMD) for the combined periods 1993-2001 and 2003-2006.
  • The Appalachian and the Mississippi Valley regions had high and increasing FMD prevalence, and the upper Midwest had low and decreasing FMD prevalence during this same time period.

Alzheimer’s Disease: “Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and is the fifth leading cause among persons age 65 years and older.”

  • Up to 5.3 million Americans currently have Alzheimer’s disease.
  • By 2050, the number is expected to more than double due to the aging of the population.

So there we have it. These illnesses sap those who suffer from them, and sap our health system, and our means of dealing with them appropriately and skillfully are far from fully developed. And, in fact, we as a society don’t work as hard as we should and could to better prepare our members for dealing with emotional misalignment and addiction.

And so we pay a very great price, finding mental illness more malignant than, well, melanoma.

TAGGED: mental illness

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Rhona Finkel November 29, 2012
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Copy Link Print
Share
Previous Article Deval Patrick’s Wisdom (and lack thereof) on Health Reform
Next Article Everything We Know in Health is Wrong. Medicine is a Science, Not Dogma. #askforevidence

Stay Connected

1.5k Followers Like
4.5k Followers Follow
2.8k Followers Pin
136k Subscribers Subscribe

Latest News

healthy travel tips when visiting Australia
7 Essential Tips to Stay Safe and Healthy Visiting Australia
News March 29, 2023
health risks of dirty mattress
Clean Your Mattress Properly to Avoid Common Health Issues
Health March 29, 2023
eligble for NDIS?
Are You Eligible For NDIS? How To Apply
News March 29, 2023
upgrade to your nursing career
4 Pertinent Ways to Upgrade Your Nursing Career
Nursing March 29, 2023

You Might also Like

technology Revolutionizing Dentistry
Dental health

Beyond Traditional Tools: How Tech is Revolutionizing Dentistry

March 29, 2023
Diabetes Diet myths
Diabetes

8 Diabetes Diet Myths That Have You Confused

March 28, 2023
chemical peels for skin disorders
Skin

Chemical Peels Can Do Wonders for Treating Skin Disorders

March 23, 2023
dental care modern
Dental health

Dental Mission Trips Help Provide Dental Care to Impoverished Nations

March 22, 2023
//

We influence million of users and is the most authentic source of information on healthcare business and technology news.

Quick Links

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Subscribe

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

Follow US

© 2008-2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?