Mental health

 Dr Bigg 

By Dr Bigg, mental health first aider.

Awareness, acceptance and treatment of mental health has quite the history.

There has been a long, slow, but remarkable progress in the development of mental health treatment.

I am currently a mental health first aider, and previously I have worked in mental health at a psychiatric hospital.

That same hospital was originally a lunatic asylum. The hospital was a building so iconic in its features as a lunatic asylum that it was twice used as a horror movie set. Thankfully, such settings for mental health treatment are now only a relic of the past. The hospital is now a private health spa.

I For one hugely welcome such progress. As a society, we have moved from shutting people away to attempting to treat mental health, and have moved further from the stigma surrounding it until we have reached a point, whereby people embrace mental wellness and openly adopt practices such as mindfulness and mental health days.

At the Psychiatric hospital I worked with a team responsible for patients Who had committed crimes and Deemed to be mentally ill. The range of crimes committed was very wide. It was a a secure ward. There was an airlock type of arrangement for entering the ward whereby you enter through one door, lock the door behind you, and then open the second door onto the ward, so there was never an open exit.

Admissions tended to be long-term, and the suicide rate was high. There was a Stigma associated with mental illness, treatment for mental illness and Admission to the ward. Consequences of diagnosis, sectioning and hospitalisation were sometimes catastrophic.

Seemingly alongside The progress in both attitudes and quality of treatment for mental health, So technology has also advanced. 40 years ago, the first AI programs became available to the public. Computers begin to learn based on experience . At home, we had a handheld computer with which you could hold a simple conversations . 25 years ago, a computer defeated, the chess grandmaster.

Technology offers us great hope with further progress in the field of mental health support. It has increased accessibility to support, such as through online counselling for example.

As both the technology and the available data have grown enormously, it has allowed application of machine learning so that AI can utilise a variety of data set to identify mental health illnesses. The data sets utilised are no different to those used by a clinician. These are used to supplement clinical practices.

And the latest technology available is artificial intelligence. There is a growing body of evidence that artificial intelligence confirm the progress, the journey of mental health support, bringing into the modern era, making mental health support fit for the future.

Much like the application of data science machine, learning to maintenance of machinery and instrumentation so machine learning and computer. Algorithms have already successfully been applied to physical health.

The very same algorithms and the same approach of machine, learning and data science can be applied to improve application of positive outcomes of treatment for mental health.

As well once physical elements were treated with amputations and leeches and mental health were treated with lobotomies so great progress has been made. I’m much like the move to keyhole surgery or sonic treatment rather than more invasive treatments for physical well-being so much greater help for mental health can be obtained through technology. 

The progress of understanding, mental health, mental well-being and the progress in technology makes way a move to accessible technology in your own home, combining the learning from both disciplines and hardware that is proven that already exist that allows us digital access to the Internet through voice control devices.