| REVIEW OF LITERATURE: Anxiety is a normal phenomenon, characterised by apprehension due to anticipation of danger. Normal anxiety becomes pathological when it causes significant subjective distress or impairment in the functioning of an individual. (2) GAD is a chronic condition characterised by excessive, uncontrollable and often irrational worry about everyday things, accompanied by a variety of somatic symptoms that cause significant impairment in social or occupational functioning or marked distress in the patient. (2) (3) DEFINITION:- · Generalized anxiety disorder is defined as excessive anxiety and worry about a number of events or activities at least for 6 month and most of days. (4) EPIDEMIOLOGY · Generalized anxiety disorder is most common type of anxiety disorder, affecting 6.8 million adult or 3.1% India populations (1) · GAD is often estimated to affect approximately 3–6% of adults. (5) · It is more common in female than in male (4) · The prevalence of the diagnosis peaks in middle age and declines across the later years of life (4) ETIOLOGY:- 1. Temperamental (4) and personality (3) 2. Environmental factor (4) and Life Experience (6) 3. Genetics (4) 4. Brain structures (6) 5. Lifestyle and social factor (6) CLINICAL/DIAGNOSTIC FEATURES:- · The essential characteristics of generalized anxiety disorder are sustained and excessive anxiety and worry accompanied by either motor tension or restlessness. (7) · Intensity, duration & frequency of anxiety and worry out of proportion. (4) · Individual finds it is difficult to control worry and to keep worrisome thoughts from interfering with attention to tasks at hand. (4) · Worries associated with generalized anxiety disorder are more pervasive, pronounced and distressing, have a longer duration and frequency occur without precipitant. (4) DSM-5 DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA FOR GENRALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER (4) A. Excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectation), occurring more days than not for at least 6 months, about a number of events or activities. B. The individual finds it difficult to control the worry C. The anxiety and worry are associated with three (or more) of the following six symptoms (with at least some symptoms having been present for more days than not for the past 6 months): 1. Restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge. 2. Being easily fatigued. 3. Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank. 4. Irritability. 5. Muscle tension. 6. Sleep disturbance D. The anxiety, worry, or physical symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning. E. The disturbance is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance F. The disturbance is not better explained by another medical disorder. TREATMENT (7) (5) 1. Psychotherapy. · Cognitive behavioural therapy(CBT) 2. Pharmacotherapy · Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor(SSIR) · Benzodiazepines, venlaflexine MASTER HAHNEMANN AND MENTAL DISEASES · Master Hahnemann gives a much attention to mental diseases. He sees the mentally ill patient as a whole sick individual who need proper care and treatment. In organon of medicine aphorism 210 to 230 mental diseases are mentioned. The psychosomatic diseases mentioned in aphorism 225 in this aphorism he states that the physique slightly changed or indisposed by psychological causes such as continued anxiety, worry vexation, stress and long lasting excessive fear and fright. These psychological diseases affect the physical health & may affect the physique in high degree. (8) · APHORISM 225-“There are, however, as has just been stated, certainly a few emotional diseases which have not merely been developed into that form out of corporeal diseases, but which, in an inverse manner, the body being but slightly indisposed, originate and are kept up by emotional causes, such as continued anxiety, worry, vexation, wrongs and the frequent occurrence of great fear and fright. This kind of emotional disease in time destroys the corporeal health, often to a great degree†(9) APHORISM 225 AND GENREALIZED ANXIETY DIOSRDER · Here the generalized anxiety disorder itself a chronic emotional disease and also include the somatic symptoms. So this somatic symptoms not the associated features but developed due to the chronic anxiety. But how it affected? · Several regions of the brain that mediate the processing of stimuli associated with fear, anxiety, memory, and emotion like amygdala, insula and frontal cortex. In the amygdale there is a basolateral amygdala complex recognizes sensory information and activates GABAergic neurons which can cause somatic symptoms of anxiety. GABAergic neurons control the nervous system by reducing feelings of stress, anxiety, and fear. When there is inadequate number of GABAergic neurons, those negative feelings become apparent and can release somatic responses of stress. (5) · Homoeopathy treats the patient as a whole in mental and physical plane together based on symptom similarity. Homoeopathy rejects mind-body duality. According to the homoeopathic principle, mind and body are dynamically interconnected and all chronic diseases, if studied carefully, will show decided & characteristic mental symptoms long before physical changes can be discovered in the body. (10) HOMOEOPATHIC MANAGEMENT (9) 1. In APHORISM 226- Master Hahnemann advice to give psychological therapies and give counselling to patients. Display of confidence –behavioural therapy Interpersonal therapy- friendly exhortations and sensible advice. It is apply in cases when it recent origin and not damage corporeal health to a great degree. 2. APHORISM 227, when the fundamental cause in case is psoric miasm. In this case anti psoric treatment is required. VIEWS OF PIONEERS- (11) · J T KENT- Mind is the centre of the whole functioning of the organism and that it is also the focal point from which the disease process starts. · WILLIAM BOERICKE- Mental states & emotions are evident primary causes or contributing factors to the production or continuance of disease. · C. M. BOGER- The relative time for the appearance of each symptom naturally varies with the speed of the disease. From, this we reason that the earliest mental manifestations are decidedly the most important of all symptoms. |