HNB3224 Mental Health and Illness - Essay Plan

Essay Plan

The comorbidity or co-occurring of mental and physical illness is a challenge for health care professional yet this topic seems to have been given inadequate attention. The relationship of mental and physical health has been underestimated in the past, the relationship is complexed and hard to understand because the relationship varies for each disorder mental or physical. The relation between diabetes and depression could be considered a model to explain the comorbidity of mental and physical illnesses (Sartorius N., 2016).  In the last twenty years the prevalence of comorbid physical and mental illnesses has increased in elder people as well in the younger generation. The increase is likely to continue which is partly due to the fact that more people are dying after 70 due to the use of modern medicine, another reason is the increasing unhealthy lifestyles across the globe. The presence of two diseases does not mean that they would exist apart from each other rather the presence of the two disease would worsen the effects of each disease, which would also mean that the cure for these disease would become even more difficult. The lack of practitioners in this field lead to diagnosis of one disease only because the practitioner diagnoses what he/she knows best (N., 2013). In comparing the physical health of prisoners that have reported mental illness and the physical health of prisoners that have no mental illness it was clear that prisoners with no mental illness were physically better than those with mental illnesses (Tony Butler, 2007). This shows that mental illness could be a cause for physical illness which tells us how complex the comorbidity of physical and mental illness is. After diagnoses the cure of the two co-existing diseases is also a challenge for practitioners, as discussed earlier the effect of both diseases increases in a comorbid situation. Depressed diabetic patient have debilitating effects on their mental health which means it becomes hard for them to carry routine tasks. Working to release depression might be effected by diseases like diabetes as it constraints physical activity of the patient (Snoek, 2018). There is a requirement to spread awareness and to increase the knowledge of practitioners so that both diseases can be diagnosed and cured. Practitioners could work together for a complete diagnosis of such conditions but this could only be done if both practitioners would have basic knowledge of the other’s field of study. The patients also need to learn about the co-existence of mental and physical diseases so that they could explain their condition properly. Prevention of diseases can only be done if the causes of the diseases are known, unhealthy lifestyle is one reason for the presence of such diseases which has to be addressed and the general public needs to be aware of the mental and physical benefits of a healthy diet. Awareness of the disease, knowledgeable practitioners and more research in the field of comorbidity of illnesses are some important points that need to be considered to prevent and cure such diseases.