Question

Anxiety disorders are often co-occuring with other mental health diagnoses. What are the most common co-morbids, what do you treat first, how, and why?

Answer 1

ANXIETY DISORDERS: is a mental health disorder characterised by feelings of worry, anxiety or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one's daily activities. The common symptoms of anxiety disorders are a) feeling nervous, restless or tense b) increased heart rate c) sweating d) hyperventilation e) feeling weak or tired f) trouble concentrating or thinking and g) trembling.

CO-MORBIDS: A comorbid condition refers to one or more diseases that occur along with other conditions in the same person at the same time. It is often considered as long-term conditions.

MOST COMMON CO-MORBIDS: The most common co-morbids with anxiety disorders are a) Depressive Disorder (such as dysthymia and major depressive disorders) and b) Panic Anxiety Disorders.

WHAT DO YOU FIRST TREAT AND HOW ? Anxiety disorders frequently occurs with other conditions such as depression or somatic complaints and predicts poor outcomes with a higher percentage of treatment resistance than either disorder occuring alone. In mental health, one of the more common comorbidity in anxiety is depression. Reseach studies show that to about more than half of the patient with anxiety disorders will also have the symptoms of depression. These comorbidity condition often occurs when the patient is triggered by an external stressor or stressors. In this case, it is needed to treat both the conditions early to reach their goals. This means that those experiencing both anxiety and depression should need better specialized treatment to reduce the impact of symptoms in a mental illnesses. The treatment should focus first on to reduce the effect of depression in a patient by administering ANTIDEPRESSANTS (to improve a person's mood) and an additional step to be taken to decrease the depressive behavior through cognitive bahavioral therapy to the treatment plan. In addition to this, family support along with the treatment can result in developing a positive attitude towards the disease. On top of these, these patients can engage in a) group activities to reduce the negative thoughts b) exercise c) stress management therapy and d) induce sleep to reduce the suicidal thoughts. However, it is necessary to find out those experiencing one or multiple illnesses need early treatment to attain successful .

WHY IT SHOULD BE TREATED? In general, depression is a serious and common condition that need time to get better from a treatment plan and if untreated, there is a high risk of suicidal thoughts in patients. It is important to remember that anxiety and depression is not a weakness of a patient, but is a medical conditions that need effective treatment to reduce the mental health issues.