Psychiatry

Psychiatry play a crucial role in comprehensive healthcare by addressing both the mental and physical aspects of well-being. Often, mental and physical challenges go hand in hand. Only a psychiatrist can prescribe necessary medication and even uncover underlying physical causes for your distress. Medex is your one-stop practice for all your family’s physical and psychological health needs. Call today for an appointment.

Our physician diagnoses, treats, and prevents behavioral, emotional, and psychiatric disorders and focuses on mental conditions, including substance abuse issues. The priorities of the team is to strive to prevent worsening symptoms that could pose additional challenges.

Whether you or a family member are showing early signs of instability or are stuck in the throes of mental dysfunction, we provide a wide range of practical solutions. Look no further for diagnoses and treatment of conditions, such as:

• Anxiety
• Bipolar disorder
• Body dysmorphic disorder
• Borderline personality
• Depression

Early Warning Signs

The psychiatrists at Medex often get referrals from other physicians in the facility. Those medical specialists recognize signs of a mental disorder or a behavioral problem and look to the experts. Your psychiatrist also takes direct appointments if you’re ready to work on the issues that, for example, have kept you trapped in a detrimental behavior.

The earlier you seek treatment, the better chance your doctor has to improve your quality of life. Early signs of a psychiatric disorder include:

• Panic attacks
• Hearing voices
• Contemplating suicide
• Unexplained sadness
• Overwhelming feelings
• Daily drinking
• Illegal drug use
• Hallucinations
• Difficulty functioning in day-to-day life

Full Range of Diagnostic Tests

A doctor can order blood tests and a full range of other diagnostic tests to determine if your symptoms are related to an underlying medical condition. Extensive medical training and experience in dealing with patients like you enable them to interpret your problems into a firm diagnosis.

Mental disorders often are related to your family history and genetics, which our doctors are trained to detect. Through psychiatric analysis, you’re more likely to receive a diagnosis that considers the complex integration of both the physical and psychological factors that affect you.

Treatment Options

Medication, psychotherapy and mechanical interventions like electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are used as necessary. Therapy also involves talking with your doctor, known as talk therapy. This may take several different forms, such as:

• Family therapy to work through personal dynamics affecting individual members of your family
• Cognitive behavior therapy to help you change damaging behavior patterns
• Psychoanalysis that delves into your background and how it’s affecting you now

Medications are available to cover a wide range of diagnoses. Behavioral medications are often prescribed to allow you to function in your job and relationships while you do the work to solve the root causes. Treatment possibilities include:

• Sedatives, often successful for anxiety treatment
• Hypnotics to help you sleep better
• Antidepressants as depression treatment, although they’re also prescribed for many other disorders, ranging from PTSD and panic disorders to obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD), eating disorders and borderline personality disorder
• Stimulants, often prescribed to children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
• Mood stabilizing medicine, helpful as a bipolar disorder treatment
• Antipsychotics that are prescribed to treat schizophrenia and symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions

The Benefits

Psychotherapy, combined with the proper medication, usually proves to be the most effective treatment for long-term results. Regular visits for talk therapy may last just a few weeks or continue for years, depending on your needs.

ECT is a safe and effective form of treatment that sends electrical currents to the brain. It’s reserved for those who don’t respond to other treatments. Newer mechanical therapies are also available, such as:

• Light therapy to treat seasonal affective depression (SAD)
• Vagus nerve stimulation used to treat epilepsy, which is sometimes useful as depression treatment
• Transcranial magnetic stimulation, a non-invasive procedure primarily used to treat severe depression
• Deep brain stimulation, which requires implanting a device that stimulates certain parts of your brain as necessary when all other forms of depression treatment fail, and when chronic relapses occur from conditions such as addiction and OCD

Why Early Intervention Matters

According to a study in the Annual Review of Neuroscience, nearly half of Americans suffer from a mental disorder at some time in their lives. Unfortunately, suicide is almost always preceded by the presence of a mental disorder. And in the US, suicide ranks number 11 in causes of death. For young people between the ages of 15 and 24, it spikes to the third leading cause of mortality.