If you trace a history of the illness back to ancient Greece you will definitely find some records of it. 2000 years ago ancient Greeks even were able to identify and differentiate such opposite sides of mood as melancholia, or in other words, depression and mania.

But the assumption that these two mood extremes can be somehow connected and represent sides of one illness belongs to a famous Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia. Right as it was his theory stayed just a theory for quite a long period of time.

It was not until the 18^th century that a mental treatment got a different direction and the whole concept of mental illnesses was reviewed. The healing methods became more compassionate and more time was spent in observation and research; also all the investigations and observation results were documented. This was the time when the connection between the depressive and maniac periods in some patients was noticed again and paid proper attention.

In the 1850’s the condition was called a “folie circulaire” by the French psychiatrist Jean-Pierre Falret. He noticed that the illness had a circular character and therefore named it likewise. The term is translated from French as ‘circular insanity’.

Another Frenchman, the neurologist Jules Baillarger assumed that those extremes in mood represented different phases of the same disease. He called it ‘dual-form insanity’.

But the final term as we use it now – ‘bipolar disorder’ – was introduced by the German psychiatrist Karl Kleist, in 1953. Before him Emil Kraepelin in 1899 was the first to use the term ‘manic depressive illness’ in order to define depressive and maniac periods together as one condition.

It depends on every person individual characteristics and features how long the illness will last: it can be 5 years and can be 20. People usually seek for medical aid for the first time when they start experiencing memory loss. Then, if there is any suspicion that memory loss is caused by Alzheimer’s disease, a number of tests is carried out: cognitive tests and behavioral assessment, also a brain scan. Only after that a diagnosis is stated.

What triggers the illness is not known for sure but there are presuppositions that tangles and plaques in the brain are involved. Nowadays there is no cure for the illness either; no even medication that can slow down the progress of it. Sad as it is, but these are the facts. There have been a lot of attempts to unfold the reasons and plenty of preventive measures suggested but none of the latter had any tangible effect.

Some of the most sensible preventive measures are considered exercise, balanced diet and mental stimulation; but they are still observed from the angle of general health measures and not particular ones that can guarantee the prevention. Still, taking into consideration degenerative and incurable character of the illness this is better than nothing. Therefore if, for instance, they say that Mediterranean diet consisting of cereals, vegetables, olive oil, fruits, wheat bread, and red wine is able to prevent the condition as well as Vitamins B, E and C and folic acid – than why not to try?

Long-term usage of NSAIDs can also reduce the risk of the illness in some cases. For a period of time female replacement hormone therapy was considered effective in dementia prevention but it proved wrong lately. But mind that if you have a history of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes and you smoke your risk is much higher.

Perhaps, the best preventive thing is to use your cognitive recourses to the utmost, play different cognitive games, do puzzles and crosswords, learn foreign languages, etc. The more you occupy your mind the less it will wear and degrade. If a mind can be compared with a muscle then the more training the better and the less is a risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

The condition does not mean that only people with low IQ have it. Not in the least. Different people suffer from this illness that is also called ‘Arithmetic Difficulties’ or ‘AD’. The condition also accompanied by troubles with time measurement and spatial reasoning.

The condition is easily noticed in young age and it is frequently diagnosed according to the following symptoms:

• a person does not understand what plus, minus, multiplication and division symbols mean and what is the sense of these operations;
• a patient has difficulty differentiating between two integers and saying which one is larger;
• a person confuses 5 and S  and does not see the difference between 0 (zero) and O;
• reading analog clocks represents a problem;
• everything that includes mental arithmetic is extremely difficult (change, checkbooks, budgeting, etc.);
• defining time and its passing also represents a problem;
• it is hard for such a person to define ‘left’ and ‘right’ and cardinal directions; maps also represent a trouble;
• a person with dyscalculia is prone to rotate numbers (i.e. 36-63);
• he or she can’t keep up with the score during games with scores;
• finally, such a person will be learning dancing and aerobics movements much longer and with a lot more problems than an ordinary person.

There have been a lot of researches on the subject of what causes this condition and the answers are still uncertain. No actual cause was found; therefore there are suspicions that the lesions somewhere in the temporal and parietal lobes junction have something to do with the condition. Other theories suppose that it may be a congenital or a hereditary disease.

Nevertheless it can be helped; it is definitely something that a person can learn to deal with. The major thing required is a special, appropriate way of teaching for the people with such a condition.

A condition of permanent worry about the things that are hardly going to happen is called generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). This is not just simple worries, in this condition uncontrolled anxiety fills a person’s mind completely and does not let go; there is nothing else left to think about than worries. A person starts first to experience difficulties in daily life like doing his job, fulfilling some responsibilities, communication with others becomes hard; but later it can lead to more complications. The condition can also show up physically: troubles with sleeping and swallowing, irritability, sweating and muscle pains.

Nowadays it is not known for sure what actually leads to GAD but there are several theories. Some researches point out genetics as the most probable factor; others name brain chemistry (the unbalance of some neurotransmitters in the brain that results in its wrong reactions to some situations); and there is also a presupposition that it is environmental stress, or, in other words, external factors like trauma, stress, someone’s death, drug or alcohol abuse, etc. that leads to GAD. But, generally, there is usually a combination of reasons for GAD to appear.

The condition has symptoms that are similar to any other anxiety disorder but for a patient to be diagnosed with GAD they should be present for at least six months. A person having GAD feels better and worse from time to time. Symptoms can be differentiated as physical and psychological.

Physical symptoms:

• unsteadiness
• insomnia
• soreness
• nausea and getting tired easily
• muscles pains and tensions
• constant fidgeting

Psychological symptoms:

• a fear of rejection
• difficulty in relaxing
• irritability
• bad feelings
• difficulty with controlling anxious thoughts
• problems with concentration

The condition is not as desperate as it may seem; it is absolutely curable and there are several ways to do it. In many cases self-help is sufficient; but there are plenty of more severe cases when it is impossible to do without a professional assistance. The best thing to do first if you feel that you can fight your problem alone, or at least you can try, is to challenge your worries. This means literally to write them down on a piece of paper and make a thorough analysis. Perhaps, this operation will help to understand the impossibility of realization of some of your fears and therefore at least reduce your list of worries. Then, if the rest is out of your power, or if you cannon handle even thinking about your fears alone, think about who you can ask for help. Generally in cases of severe anxiety and panic attacks medical aid is advised. Nevertheless, the best you can do is to combine both ways.

GAD is a real problem in the U.S. alongside with depression; sometimes they are combined. Anxiety is more common in women but men also suffer from it; also more and more children and teenagers have been showing up a tendency to this condition, too. Therefore, it is better to prevent the problem before it finds something to feed on. Perhaps it will require reviewing your and your family lifestyle and habits and changing them. But as soon as it will help you to save yourself and your near-and-dear from worries it is worth it.

There is a tricky thing called Phobophobia, which exactly means a fear of having a phobia. I do not think it is a pleasant feeling to experience as if all your life you are afraid of becoming afraid!

Gelotophobia is an interesting type of phobia meaning that a person dreads to be ridiculed. Of course, being laughed at is utterly unpleasant and we avoid the situation if possible, but in some cases the condition can take a serious turn and cause constant discomfort and anxiety.

Good news for those who dreads bridges – there is nothing wrong with you, it’s just Gephyrophobia. Really, do not feel ashamed, it is very understandable when you stay somewhere high above some tricky mountain river on something made up of pair of cables and that does not instill assurance.

Gerascophobia, or the fear of aging is a special one for Hollywood. This condition often strikes the stars who find out one day one wrinkle that they are no longer young and sweet. They make up the wealth of so many psychologists and psychiatrists as well as plastic surgeons.

And of course, people are afraid to fly. This kind of phobia is called Aviophobia. This one is really easy to understand and treat with sympathy. Imagine being somewhere 35,000 feet above the ground on something that is very problematic to believe will not fall and kill you all. How does it just manage to stay airborne?! Then, there are other quite entertaining thoughts about the amount of the fuel in the tank and proficiency of the pilots…

Acrophobia is much more the like. It means that any kind of height terrifies you. Even ladders.

Another interesting one. Coulrophobia – a fear of clowns. Ridiculous but true, some people are afraid of these nice and pretty clowns whose concern is only to make you laugh.

The further the more entertaining. Some people start to experience horror if detached from their cell phones or if by some reason the mobile connection fails. This is called Nomophobia and happens more and more around recently.

Generally the word “phobia” is derived from Greek and is translated as uncontrolled and acute fear. There are three main classes they can be divided to.

Agoraphobia is very frequent and it means a fear of leaving the house or any place where you feel secure. It is accompanied by panic attacks and in some cases can easily go as it came; in other cases it requires treatment.

Another is social phobia meaning that a person is afraid of contacts and communication with people.

And there are lots of others. What people are not afraid of? They dread of spiders, and water and even women!

Phobias refer to anxiety disorders. It is a frequent type of mental illness met in women and also in men (on the second place) over the age of 25.

So, here is the advice: choose bridges and air carriers carefully, watch your wrinkles, crowds and clowns, make sure your house is safe and your mobile is in order. All this will save you a couple of tranquil minutes!

The brain of a person suffering from schizophrenia works in a completely different way than that of a normal person. People with this illness believe that they hear voices, see things that others cannot see and believe that they have some superior assignment than the rest. There are so many other various symptoms that can show unexpectedly and evoke inadequate response in a person. This also makes them behave inadequately.

To the people around the whole talk of a sick person may sound a total nonsense and in some cases only this sign helps to diagnose the condition because in all senses the patient seems all right.

The condition is hard to tolerate not only for the patients themselves as they experience hardships with caring for themselves and finding a job; a person’s friends and relatives suffer, too.

Schizophrenia is a chronic illness and though therapy assists in many ways to relieve the condition it cannot eliminate it. It is possible for many people with the disease to have almost normal and fulfilling lives. Nowadays new more effective medications are being developed and different investigations are being carried out on order to find out more precise reasons of an illness.

There are three groups into which symptoms can be divided: positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and cognitive symptoms.

Under the term positive symptoms we understand behaviour patterns not characteristic for healthy people. The symptoms can be mild and more severe and should not necessarily be permanent, but they generally tend to reappear. The progress of the illness depends on whether the patient undergoes any therapy or not.

• The first positive symptom is hallucinations. These are visions, sounds, smells, sensations that are real to a patient but can not be experienced by other people; something existing in a sick person’s head. The most common hallucination is voices. Depending on the case it can be a lonely voice or several talking to each other and a patient. A person hears them in his or her head and they seem absolutely real and can have neutral character or dangerous (i.e. ordering to kill or cause harm). Though voices are the most frequent they can be accompanied by other sensations quite strong in their manifestation.
• Delusions are one more symptom if an illness. They represent false beliefs of a person to which a sick person adheres to notwithstanding a fact that others are oblivious or do not believe. Some delusions are strange and absolutely illogical like the idea that radio waves have control over a patient’s emotions or that TV sends decoded messages. Another type of delusions is a strong belief that you are not who you are but some famous and important figure. “Delusions of persecution” when a person believes that somebody wants to kill or harass him or her, spies or follows are very frequent; the idea is often very obsessive and makes a patient extremely worried and liable to bizarre behaviour.
• Another positive symptom is thought disorder that can be described as unusual or dysfunctional ways of thinking. It may be expressed in so-called “disorganized thinking” when organization of one person’s thoughts logically represents a problem; it can also have a form of “thought blocking”. The latter means that sometimes it feels for a patient as if all his thoughts have been taken away in the process of thinking and he or she stops in the middle of the speech. People with schizophrenia frequently create new words that can be called “neologisms” but they usually have no meaning.
• At last there the disease can be recognized by movement disorders. There are two extremes: a person either enters the state of catatonia when he or she does not make any moves or does not react to the world around; or a patient may make repetitive movements all the time. The former state was frequent in earlier years when the treatment methods were not so advanced.

Another group of symptoms are called negative and is connected with emotions and behavior changes. The most important thing about this part is that if there are no other signs than these it is very hard not to confuse the illness with depression. A person with schizophrenia tend to feel lack of pleasure in life, he or she cannot concentrate on any activity let along lead it to fulfillment. “Flat effect” is a common case: a patient speaks little and monotonously and with the blank expression on the face. Patients with negative symptoms may seem lazy and inert but this state is caused by the disease and such people require help in their everyday activities (including personal hygiene).

Cognitive symptoms are sometimes even harder to recognize that negative ones. They include poor “executive functioning” when a patient experience difficulties with operating the information; concentrating attention on something also becomes a serious problem as well as remembering things right after learning them. In the majority of cases these symptoms require special tests to be detected.  Clearly expressed cognitive sins make a patient’s life quite complicated and cause a lot of emotional distress.

Here are some of the disorders described:

Depressive Disorders

Under depressive disorders we understand major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, and bipolar disorder. The latter is also included in this list as a patient suffers from depressive episodes as well as from the manic ones. Depression is an extremely wide-spread condition in the US; more than 9.5 percent of adult Americans suffer from it. It is characteristic for this very condition to be found more often among women than men. It can be frequently accompanied with anxiety disorder and substance abuse. It has also been noticed that the age limits of depression have broadened to a younger age group recently if compared with the earlier years when this disorder was a feature of adult and senior people.

Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorder is as frequent as depressive states, eating disorders, or substance abuse and they are frequently experienced together. There are different types of anxiety such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and various phobias (i.e. social phobia or agoraphobia). A person can have more than one type of anxiety disorder at a time. Panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, or agoraphobia, and some others are twice as characteristic for women as for men; though this can not be said about cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder and social phobia.

Eating Disorders

Eating disorders can be divided in the following groups: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. These are mostly female disorders but they happen to men sometimes. They are all nor pleasant but the condition of anorexia especially is not innocent in the case of teenage girls.

Suicide

The suicide rate in the US is miserably high. Mostly these are people with some kind of diagnosed mental disorder (depression is a featuring reason often) and frequently men over 85; though there are more and more suicides committed by young men recently. Also according to the researches women make attempts to kill themselves more often than men but these are men who succeed more often.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

ADHD is frequently met among children and adolescents and more characteristic for boys than girls. It is mostly easily detected on the early stages of development (in preschool or elementary school) and can follow to adolescence and even into adulthood in some cases.

Autism

Autism and related disorders are mental disorders that show by the age of 3 in children and mostly affect boys. In the case with girls the symptoms are more severe and cognitive function is affected worse.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder. It has no sex limitations and about 1.1 % of American men and women suffer from this condition. Men discover it earlier then women – frequently in their teens; women develop it usually in the period of their 20s-30s.

Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease generally affects people over 65 years of age and is quite frequent. The life-span after the appearance of the first symptoms is about 8-10 years; the longer the Americans live the higher the illness rate becomes and the proper medication has not been found yet.

Before you have a real reason to be troubled it is important to know some facts about ADHD. It usually has three main constituents such as inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity.

The first one, inattention shows up in difficulty organizing activities, inability to complete the given tasks and solve a problem if time required is too long, there are also problems with concentration and focusing on something one at a time, and also remembering, a child is easily distracted and absent-minded.

The second side of the condition relates to impulsivity and troubles controlling urges and impulses. You can easily see it in child’s frequent interruptions and sufferings while waiting for his or her turn.

The third part of a problem is hyperactivity. It is revealed in a child’s constant urge to move and inability to keep sitting position for long. Such a child is often loud and everywhere, he or she produces a lot of noise and often cannot control themselves to behave appropriately. And this is not because they want to make their parents or teachers become mad but just because they can’t help it.

Even if some of the above mentioned features apply to your child this is not necessarily that he or she has ADHD. Such behaviour is characteristic to some extent for many children. Therefore it is essential to check up with the doctor before jumping to any conclusions.

Once (and only then) the diagnosis is confirmed measures should be taken. Be very careful if you are going to give your child any medications. Even if they were proved safe and efficient and are FDA approved there is no guaranteed response to them in children as their organism is in the process of development. Moreover remedies have various side-effects and you can impair your child’s condition instead of improving it. Therefore it makes sense to try some natural remedies as they are far more effective and adequately less harmful. They usually have minor side affects and have no tendency to interact with other medications.

The choice of the treatment is always a responsibility of parents. But keep in mind that first your child should be professionally diagnosed for having the condition. Then make sure that all the medications you use are safe and approved in order not to cause harm.