Talk therapy might help to cure schizophrenia

In US, more than 2 million people are diagnosed with schizophrenia, and strong doses of antipsychotic drugs accounts for most of its treatment. This might help to blunt delusions as well as hallucinations but comes with added disadvantages such as weight gain or unbearable tremors.

To counter this, the recent results of a landmark government-funded study in the US concluded that schizophrenia patients who received bigger emphasis on one-on-one talk therapy, support from family and smaller doses of antipsychotic medication, made greater strides in recovery over the first two years of treatment than patients who got the usual drug-based care.

The study began in 2009 and included patients at 34 community care clinics in 21 states. The American Journal of Psychiatry has published this report on Tuesday, Oct 20, 2015, and it was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, said the webMD.com report.

On Oct 16, 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have published a strong endorsement of the combined-therapy approach in its guidelines. Now, the mental health reform bills are being circulated in Congress said the director of services and intervention research at the centers, Robert K. Heinssen, who administered the research.

According to the New York Times report, Congress awarded $25 million in block grants to the states in 2014, to be set aside for early-intervention mental health programmes. Until now, only 32 states have begun using those grants to fund combined-treatment services, he said.

The study has recorded the more holistic approach based in part on programmes in Australia, Scandinavia and in several other countries that have improved patients’ lives for decades.

The combined treatment had too many similarities with a Finnish programme, “ Open Dialogue ” that was developed in the 1980s. In the new study, doctors have used the medications as part of a package of treatments and have worked to keep the doses as low as possible, in some cases 50 percent lower to minimise its ill effects on health.

Kenneth Duckworth, the medical director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group, called the findings “A game-changer for the field” as it combines several, individualised therapies that has suited to the stage of the psychosis.

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