Affiliation:
1. Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences University of Western Ontario Robarts Research Institute London Ontario Canada
2. Manipal University and Public Health Foundation New Delhi India
3. İstanbul Bilgi University Psychology Department Istanbul Turkey
4. Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University and Culture and Mental Health Research Unit, Lady Davis Institute Jewish General Hospital Montreal Canada
Abstract
AbstractThe pandemic dramatized the close links among cognitive, mental, and social health; a change in one reflects others. This realization offers the opportunity to bridge the artificial separation of brain and mental health, as brain disorders have behavioral consequences and behavioral disorders affect the brain. The leading causes of mortality and disability, namely stroke, heart disease, and dementia, share the same risk and protective factors. It is emerging that bipolar disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, and some depressions share these risk factors, allowing their joint prevention through a holistic life span approach. We need to learn to focus on the whole patient, not simply on a dysfunctional organ or behavior to mitigate or prevent the major neurological and mental disorders by fostering an integrated approach to brain and mental health and addressing the common, treatable risk factors.
Subject
Psychiatry and Mental health,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience,Geriatrics and Gerontology,Neurology (clinical),Developmental Neuroscience,Health Policy,Epidemiology