20 19 World Mental Health Day to promote popular science knowledge materials.

(1) What is mental illness?

Mental illness is caused by the disorder of human brain skills, which leads to abnormal perception, thinking, emotional feeling and behavior of patients. There are many types of common mental diseases, such as schizophrenia, emotional mental disorder and brain organic mental disorder. Different types of mental illness have different clinical manifestations and different treatment methods.

Mental illness often occurs in young adults, some of which have intermittent attacks, some of which continue to progress, and gradually tend to be chronic, with high recurrence rate and high disability rate. Without active treatment, mental retardation and personality changes may occur, making it difficult to adapt to social life and fulfill the responsibilities that should be borne by the family and society. However, if early detection and timely treatment, patients can completely recover from the disease and live, study and work normally.

(2) Why do you get mental illness?

Because the mechanism of people's normal mental activities is still unclear, the cause of mental illness has not been fundamentally solved so far. Nevertheless, a lot of research has accumulated a lot of useful information, which provides clues for further research. Among them, genetic factors play an important role. Taking schizophrenia as an example, the prevalence rate of schizophrenia among relatives of patients is significantly higher than that of the general population, and the closer the blood relationship, the higher the prevalence rate. Of course, schizophrenia has only a genetic tendency, and there is no clear heredity. Whether the disease occurs or not depends on many factors such as environmental factors and psychological factors.

In addition, many people think that "people with mental illness are stimulated", which is exaggerated and strengthened by literary works such as novels and movies, but there is no sufficient scientific basis. Studies have shown that only a few patients have received strong mental stimulation before the onset. Therefore, most experts believe that there is no direct causal relationship between mental stimulation and mental illness, but it may be just one of the inducing factors that promote the onset of some patients.

Furthermore, the occurrence of mental illness has a great relationship with the patient's pre-illness personality. Research shows that 50 ~ 60% of schizophrenics have personality characteristics such as withdrawn, introverted, sensitive and suspicious, fond of fantasy, timid and shy, and lack of logic in thinking. Therefore, some people call these personality characteristics "split personality", which is an important internal factor of schizophrenia. People with the above personality defects are not only prone to illness, but also relatively difficult to treat, and the risk of recurrence after rehabilitation is also greater. It can be seen that cultivating teenagers' lively, cheerful and strong personality plays an important role in preventing mental illness.

(3) How to identify early mental illness?

Some patients have a slow onset, and their early manifestations are often not easily understood as mental illness by people around them. It is difficult for family members to recall the exact onset time before the serious development of the disease. The early symptoms of mental illness are:

Laziness: not paying attention to personal hygiene, not working seriously, and not observing labor discipline. Students are late, leave early, do not finish their homework, and their academic performance drops. It doesn't matter if they are criticized, but they still go their own way.

Indifference: indifference to people, avoidance of social interaction, reticence, often sitting alone, or wandering aimlessly, indifferent to the concern of others.

Self-talk and self-laugh: It is puzzling to hear the patient mutter, don't know what he is talking about or laugh alone.

Suspicion: Unjustified suspicion that others are malicious to themselves, with changeable mood, bad temper or unreasonable tension and fear.

Unexplained physical discomfort: I always emphasize my insomnia, headache and fatigue, and use this as an excuse to avoid socializing and working for a long time. I am satisfied with the status quo. I don't think there is anything wrong with this, and I don't actively treat my discomfort. Please note that this is one of the important differences between physical illness and mental illness.

Symptoms of speculum: sitting in front of the mirror for a long time, looking at your face. This may be due to a symptom called perceptual syndrome. A patient saw that his face was deformed or unreal, so he looked in the mirror for a long time.

Emotional instability: crying, excited or furious because of trivial matters, which is inconsistent with his previous personality.

If you find the above symptoms, please come to consult as soon as possible.

(4) How to become a "competent" family member of mental patients?

1, see a doctor as soon as possible.

When you realize that your family has symptoms of mental illness, you will feel shocked, scared and worried, and try your best to refuse to accept this reality. However, when this sign is very clear, you will feel helpless and at a loss. Finally, as a last resort, you still have to deal with a mental hospital, which is a mysterious and terrible place for you. What needs to be reminded here is that in order to shorten the time from finding the illness to seeing a doctor as much as possible, you should eliminate any worries and worries, and consult a specialized hospital immediately when you suspect that your family has mental problems. There's nothing to lose by consulting alone. If the doctor says this situation is not mental illness, then everyone is happy. Otherwise, treatment should be started immediately. This is what we often call "early detection and early treatment". Shortening the time from discovery to treatment has a great influence on the outcome of the disease.

Step 2 accept the reality

When your family is diagnosed with mental illness, you add a new role-the family of the mentally ill. How to be competent for this new role? This is a severe test for you, and you will be on tenterhooks all day: if there is a mental patient at home, will unpredictable things happen at any time? What will others think when they know? This is something you have never thought about before and you don't want to think about it. How to arrange patients' work and study? Do you need to invent an excuse for him to ask for leave? Where can the patient's medical expenses be reimbursed? Many things need you to consider and deal with. This unexpected event has really caused you great psychological pressure. You have to be busy taking the patient to see a doctor, urging him to take medicine, taking care of his life, and going to your or his unit to go through various formalities ... I often hear family members complain: "There is a mental patient at home, and I am almost mentally ill." At this point, what you need most is to accept the reality as soon as possible, stabilize your mood and deal with these things in an orderly manner. This is very important for you and your patients. You may reflect, what caused him to get mental illness? What was his stimulus? However, don't think too much about this problem, because the cause of mental illness is still unclear, and many patients get sick without any stimulation.

3, understand the knowledge of mental illness

You need to know what mental illness is, the occurrence and development law of mental illness, the main symptoms of various mental illnesses, the characteristics and side effects of various therapeutic drugs, matters needing attention in home care, and how to prevent recurrence after cure and how to carry out psychological and social rehabilitation. This knowledge is very important to you. With it, you can know the situation, know how to observe the illness, arrange the patient's life, and know how to deal with special situations.

4. Accustomed to dealing with mental patients

After your family got sick, your relationship added another layer of patient-family relationship to the previous layer. How to deal with this relationship will directly affect the outcome of the disease. You sometimes need to be a nurse to care and take care of patients' lives. Sometimes it is necessary to explain the functions of various drugs to patients on behalf of doctors and urge them to take drugs according to doctors' instructions; Sometimes we should treat patients as friends, exchange opinions and discuss problems sincerely; Sometimes it is necessary to show respect for the elderly and force the patient to do things he doesn't want to do but must do, such as regular rest, self-care, outpatient review and taking medicine on time and in quantity.

5. Skills of dealing with mental patients

Speak slowly, peacefully and clearly. If you want to ask him questions or tell him what to do, you can only say one thing at a time. Saying several things at the same time will overwhelm him. Speak in a focused and friendly way, even if he seems absent-minded, don't ignore him. Always use words and actions to express your concern and love for him, and sometimes talk about childhood memories, which may create a more pleasant atmosphere. No matter how little progress he has made in life and work, he should be fully encouraged to rebuild patients' self-esteem. Try to avoid complaints and accusations. Don't try to convince the patient that he is obviously divorced from reality, let alone argue with him or laugh at him. Not only does this not help, but it will bring trouble. Cultivate patients' more hobbies, provide them with social opportunities appropriately and encourage them to express their emotions.

6. Make a life schedule for patients.

On the basis of consultation with patients, make a life schedule for patients, so that they can form the habit of working and sleeping on time.

In short, due to the particularity of mental illness itself, it also puts high demands on the families of mental patients. It can be said that the process of family members' efforts to promote patients' rehabilitation is also the process of family members' improvement of their own quality. Mental illness is a long-term disease. Family members need to gradually adapt to their new colors, and they should also be prepared for a "protracted war".