Mood Disorders More Than Just A Bad Mood

Everyone experiences ups and downs in their lives, but no one deserves to suffer from extended periods of sadness and depression. According to the National Institutes of Health, about 20.9 million American adults, or 9.5 percent of the population have mood disorders. These include major depressive disorder; dysthymic disorder (a chronic, mild depression); and bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression.

Major depressive disorder alone is the leading cause of disability among Americans between the ages of 15 and 44, according to the World Health Organization. And bipolar disorder is frequently cited as the most expensive behavioral health care diagnosis, one of the top 10 leading causes of disability worldwide because of its high incidence, with an estimated 2.6 percent of the U.S. adult population suffering from the disorder. According to National Association for Mental Illness, the average lifetime cost per bipolar patient can exceed $600,000 for patients with nonresponsive or chronic episodes.

It’s for these reasons and more that the Psychiatric Research Institute offers a wide variety of services for those patients dealing with mood disorders. This includes a comprehensive assessment, utilizing state-of-the-art testing equipment, and pharmacogenomics, which involves using the patient’s genetic patterns to determine the best possible treatment plan.

PRI’s mood disorders program will take all of the patient’s symptoms into consideration before arriving at a plan for treating them. Individual and group cognitive therapy, medications or a combination of the three may be recommended. But not everyone will respond to these forms of standardized treatment. For those patients, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) may be more appropriate. Modern ECT is a safe and effective treatment, done on an outpatient basis in PRI’s technically advanced facility. Another option is ketamine infusion, which involves the use of an anesthetic that been shown to provide a rapid response in patients with recurring depression. PRI is one of the nation’s few facilities currently prescribing ketamine, with patients showing signs of improvement within one to two days of being administered the drug.

PRI’s program is the only one of its kind in Arkansas, offering personalized evaluations and precision treatment of mood disorders and mixed mood/anxiety disorders. Our trained team of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counselors are capable of helping patients who have gone for too long without receiving the kind of care only PRI can provide.