Posted by violette on July 12, 2010, at 16:19:10
"So theres tremendous hope for the treatment of the disease."
http://psychiatrist-blog.blogspot.com/2010/07/charlie-rose-brain-series-mental-health.html
Nobel Prize winner Dr. Eric R. Kandel co-hosts the show with Charlie Rose, and to quote Dr. Kandel from the transcript:
The whole history of psychiatry, which is a culmination of EmileKraepelin, is interesting. Weve known about these illnesses sinceHippocrates, the great Greek physician in the 5th century, who notonly spoke about depression and manic-depressive psychosis butspecifically indicated that these are medical illnesses. But this basic idea was lost on European medicine for thelongest period of time. During the middle ages, even later inthe Renaissance period, these were thought as demonic disorders,people possessed by the devil or moral degeneracy. And people with mental disorders were put away in insaneasylums usually far removed from the center of town and oftenthey were kept in chains so they dont move around. Fortunately, this situation was reversed in about 1800. TheParis school of medicine began to really express a very modernview of medical science. And Philippe Pinel, a great Frenchpsychiatrist, realized psychiatric disorders, as Hippocrates hadsaid, are medical illnesses, and he began to institute humanetreatment, the beginning of psychotherapy with mental patients. But from 1800 to about 1900, no progress was made inunderstanding psychiatric disorders. One couldnt localizethem specifically so one didnt know is there one mental illnessor are there many? And thats when our mutual hero, Emile Kraepelin, came on thescene. And his textbooks which began to emerge around 1902 andcontinued until he died in 1926, he outlines, for example, in thisbook in his first three chapters he defines the fact that mentalillnesses are not unitary. They affect two different processes,they affect mood, emotion on the one hand, and affect thinking onthe other. And he defined the disorders that affect mood -- depression andmanic-depressive disorder, and he defined the disorders of thinkingas schizophrenia. He called it dementia praecox. He thought itwas a deterioration of cognitive process in the brain early in life,praecox. And as you outlined, we have some insight into the nature ofthese diseases. We know that depression is an illness that involvesmood, which is associated with the feeling of worthlessness, aninability to enjoy life. Nothing, its all pervasive -- nothinggives one pleasure. And theres a feeling of helplessness, of worthlessness, oftenleading to thoughts of suicide and, tragically, to suicide attemptsthemselves. And 25 percent of people that have depression also have manic-depressive illness. They have the opposite end of the spectrum.They feel fantastic at the beginning of the disease. They feelbetter than theyve ever felt in their life. But ultimately thisleads to grandiosity and frank psychotic episodes. Schizophrenia is a thought disorder that has three types ofsymptoms-- positive, negative, and cognitive. The positive symptomsare characteristic I can of schizophrenia. Its the thought disorder,hallucinations, delusions, the acting crazy. The negative symptomsare the social withdrawal, the lack of motivation. And the cognitivedisorders are the difficulty with organizing ones life and adifficulty with a certain kind of memory, called working memory,short-term memory. Fortunately, as you indicated, we can now see people who have hadeffective treatment who have very productive lives. And Kay Jamisonand Elyn Saks, despite the fact they suffered the this disorder muchof their life, have rich personal lives, both of them involved inmeaningful interpersonal relationships, marriage, that is verysatisfying to them and having spectacular academic careers. So theres tremendous hope for the treatment of the disease.
poster:violette
thread:954237
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100709/msgs/954237.html