Battling mental illness and Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders has been fought by the combined efforts of therapy and pharmacology. Those of us in the treatment arena are always on the lookout for improvements in medications that will help our patients heal and remain symptom free. In recent years the major drug manufacturers scaled back their investment in research citing the expense and prolonged length of time from the lab to FDA approval.
Sufferers from depression, anxiety, PTSD as well as Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons Disease can look for hope from the The Coalition Against Major Diseases, a collaborative of private industry, patient advocacy groups and government agencies developed a standardized clinical trials database that will allow researchers to design more efficient studies of new treatments. We who provide treatment applaud the collaborative efforts of the manufacturers as we develop our own holistic innovations to therapy.
Those suffering from depression, anxiety, PTSD can wait over 10 years for a new medication to get from the lab to the marketplace. According to the World Health Organization, 13 percent of global diseases are psychiatric and neurological and many of those suffering will succumb to their disease. Mental health and substance abuse providers have long realized that their patients can become desperate and will self medicate out of desperation to relieve their pain and ameliorate the suffering. Expediting innovations in research and development to create medications that will improve treatment approaches has got to be seen as a positive step toward improving the quality of life for the patient and the care givers. Vista Taos’s program is essentially holistic, yet we firmly believe in the using safe, non-addictive medications to help our patients heal from their suffering and gain the strength to embrace recovery.
Despite the breakthroughs in neurochemistry, it is clear than medications are not going to cure psychological and psychiatric disorders. Medications do provide therapists and physicians ancillary help to provide their patients with a higher quality of life and certainly put a dent in the demand for illicit substances. Maintaining patient safety and expediting the process of improving medications is a great help to the collaborative efforts to help the neurologically impaired achieve or regain a quality of life that we all deserve.
