Exercise Is The New And Effective Natural Prescription For Psych Patients

When it comes to inpatient treatment of an array of mental health and mood problems -- from anxiety and depression to schizophrenia, acute psychotic episodes, suicidality – there is a new study which suggests that physical exercise is very effective at alleviating patient symptoms that it could lower patients' time admitted to acute facilities and reliance on psychotropic medications.

David Tomasi is a lecturer at the University of Vermont, psychotherapist and inpatient psychiatry group therapist at the University of Vermont Medical Center and lead researcher of the study. He said that the general attitude of medication is that it treats the primary problem first, and exercise is never considered to be a life or death treatment option. But now, when we know that exercise is so effective, it can become as fundamental as pharmacological intervention.

People who practice this process at inpatient psychiatric facilities -- often crowded, acute settings. In this, patients get experience of severe distress and discomfort which is typically prescribe psychotropic medications first, rather than herbal remedies like physical exercise, to cure patients' symptoms like anger, anxiety and depression. In fact, Tomasi analyzes that only a few numbers of inpatient psychiatric hospitals in the U.S. offer psychotherapist-supported gym facilities exclusively for these patients. Instead, practitioners depend on classical psychotherapeutic and pharmacological frameworks for treating psychiatric symptoms, that they monitor for determining when a patient is ready to be discharged from the facility.

Tomasi, in combination with UVMMC's Sheri Gates and Emily Reyns, created a gym exclusively for roughly 100 patients in the medical center's inpatient psychiatry unit. This is led and introduced 60-minute structured exercise and programs of nutrition education into their treatment plans. The psychotherapists analyzed patients on their mood, self-esteem and self-image. These sessions estimate both before and after the exercise sessions for gauging the effects of exercise on psychiatric symptoms.

Patients have given report of lower levels of anger, anxiety and depression, greater self-esteem, and completely improved moods. Tomasi, Gates and Reyns found an average of 95 % of patients who reported that their moods have improved after doing the structured exercises, while 63 % of the patients reported being happy or very happy, as opposed to neutral, sad or very sad, after doing the exercises. An average of 91.8 % of patients also reported that they were feeling pleased with the way their bodies felt after performing the structured exercises.

Tomasi explained that the fantastic feature about these results is that, if the patient is in a psychotic state, he or she is sort of limited with what he or she can do in terms of talk therapy or psychotherapy. It's hard to get a message with the help of talk therapy in that state, whereas by performing exercises, the patient can use his or her body and not depend on emotional intelligence alone.

He added that the preference is to offer more natural strategies for the treatment of mood disorders, depression and anxiety. Also, in practice, they hope that every psychiatric facility will comprise integrative therapies.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190521124650.htm