For the first time, the United Nations has formally placed mental health on equal footing with chronic diseases like cardiovascular conditions and cancer.<\/p>\n
The new declaration, negotiated over five months and overwhelmingly backed by heads of state and health ministers, will be presented for final approval at the UN General Assembly soon, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).<\/p>\n
The document calls for a global shift in treating mental health not in specialised institutions, but in everyday clinics, aiming to reach 150 million more people by 2030.<\/p>\n
But while global leaders agree on the principle, clinicians say the main problem remains unchanged, i.e. access.<\/p>\n
Out of more than a billion people living with mental health conditions today, less than 7% are estimated to receive effective treatment, and waiting times for services often last for months.<\/p>\n
\u201cOutdated health systems have spent decades treating mental health problems as an afterthought, yet they worsen conditions like diabetes, cancer and heart disease every minute,\u201d said Dr Hannah Nearney, medical director at Flow Neuroscience, a Britain-based company that developed an at-home, brain stimulation-based depression treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cMental illness reduces a person\u2019s ability to take good care of their physical health and affects sleep, immunity and stress hormones, making the body less able to fight chronic disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy it isn\u2019t treated as urgently as physical illness is only a rhetorical question.\u201d<\/p>\n
Multiple health conditions<\/p>\n
A new study of over 275,000 Europeans, published in the Journal Of Affective Disorders, showed that people with depressive symptoms have 57% more chronic conditions than others, and those with chronic diseases are 1.5 times more likely to have depression.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a patient walks into a general practitioner\u2019s office, their mental health should be managed with the same urgency as blood pressure or temperature,\u201d said Flow Neuroscience\u00a0global medical director Dr Kultar Singh Garcha.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main problem isn\u2019t awareness, it\u2019s accessibility.<\/p>\n
“Treatments exist, but too few are scalable or visible to frontline doctors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long waits and overprescription remain widespread worldwide.<\/p>\n
\u201cImagine waiting months for an appointment, and after 10 minutes, you leave with another prescription to add to your list,\u201d said Dr Garcha.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients managing chronic disease already take multiple drugs, and we need options that don\u2019t add to that burden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also don\u2019t need those extra side effects that often come with antidepressants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both clinicians agree that it simply puts more burden on primary care providers without actually solving the problem.<\/p>\n
They urge faster adoption of novel technologies such as brain stimulation.<\/p>\n
Among non-drug options, at-home brain stimulation is emerging as one of the few clinically-proven, scalable treatments.<\/p>\n
For example, there is a clinically-backed device, already used in Britain\u2019s National Health Service (NHS), that can be prescribed and remotely monitored by clinicians.<\/p>\n
In a recent NHS pilot, patients saw a 71% reduction in depressive symptoms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw firsthand that what we need already exists, but unfortunately, it\u2019s only at some clinics in the UK at this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile more countries are adopting this, the issue is that even some clinicians are not aware solutions exist.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntegrated into primary care, these at-home treatments make mental health care more accessible and affordable,\u201d said Dr Garcha.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey reduce waiting times, free up clinicians, and help patients get relief sooner, before symptoms escalate into crisis care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Experts say broader regulatory support will be key to making these treatments reimbursable and available through public health systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven before the UN declaration is formally adopted, its overwhelming support signals the end of the idea that mental health comes second,\u201d concluded Dr Nearney.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next step (already here), is building real access.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecovery in any chronic disease starts with a healthy brain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time, the United Nations has formally placed mental health on equal footing with chronic diseases…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,4830,2683,137,514,515,20349,13129],"class_list":{"0":"post-275321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-depression","11":"tag-gp","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-mind","16":"tag-primary-care"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}