Question

Discuss mental health issues for Early & Middle Adulthood:

- Discuss what makes this group unique when it comes to mental health (e.g., transitional issues).

- Identify risk and protective factors

- Common mental health disorders, and community interventions.

Use at least three journal articles to support your statements (cite and reference - - APA style). Write approximately three paragraphs (about five sentences per paragraph).

Answer 1

Formal school years include the onset of puberty and tus a lot of issues such as body image and self identity issues arise. They have a seriousness to develop a sense of competence out of the reinforcement and other cues that they receive from their environment. They are interested in learning skills, mastering and perfecting them in order to attain this sense of identity. Reading, writing, arithmetic, sports, games, dance, swimming, personal care ,interpersonal relationships are certain skills and aspects that are focused.  Generally there aren't significant health issues but a significant period for developing healthy life style –eating habits or coping with stress. ?Its important for children to develop healthy life styles to prevent and reduce the risks of major diseases of adulthood. This is a major time of developing life style and habits since the habits that develop at this crucial stage are likely to prevail until adulthood and beyond. Obesity is more of an urban phenomenon and therefore is on the rise nowadays with the changing life style and eating habits. Thus the parenting at this stage needs to focused around these issues. The brain growth and cognition is as follows:

•Brain growth slows down during middle childhood

•At age 10, brain reaches 95% of adult weight.

•More connections are made between nerve cells

•Parts of brain become more specialized.

•The corpus collosum thickens, leading to improved communication between the two cortical hemispheres

•Synaptic pruning continues

•Lateralization of the cerebral hemispheres increases.

•Increase in myelination of nerve fibers leading to increase in efficiency in processing information.

•Higher cognitive functions emerge, increase in organization of the brain.

•Enhanced memory, problem solving and understanding of language.

The most common problem in middle childhood is myopia, or nearsightedness which increasing by the hour in many countries. By middle childhood, the effects of prolonged and serious malnutrition are apparent in retarded physical growth, low intelligence test scores, poor motor coordination, inattention, and distractibility.

Nocturnal enuresis is bedwetting that occurs during the night. In most cases, it is caused by a failure of muscular responses that inhibit urination or a hormonal imbalance that permits too much urine to accumulate during the night. The most effective treatment is a urine alarm that wakes the child at the first sign of dampness. It works according to conditioning principles.

Therefore these are some of the issues that need to be the centre of parenting at this stage of development. As part of the community interventions, creating safety nets in all the settings within which a child operates is the need of the hour. This includes a primary, secondary and tertiary level of intervention. Creating awareness programs, ensuring peer buddy systems and availability of mental health experts, finding out the risk and protective factors and catering to them.