Are all mental illnesses treatable with medication?

Answer 1

No. Mental illnesses that aren't treatable w/medication include:
Autism
Anorexia
PTSD
Mental Retardation
Alzheimer's
Delusional Disorder

There are treatments for many if not all disorders, but "treatable" & "treatments" aren't necessarily one-and-the-same.

Answer 2

To a point. Mental illness is a chemical imbalance in the brain. There are not tests to determine the level of these chemicals (sartonine being the major chemcial that causes a mental illness). Take for example Biopolor, also known as manic depression. The levels of saratonine swing drastically up and down often and without a pattern. To diagnose this, is done by symtoms alone. The medication is to help.. in some cases it can be controlled and in some cases it only helps. Some days it seems cured and some days the medication seems to do nothing. The medication that works the best for an individual is found by merely trying it out and seeing how it works until a suitable medication is found. So in a sense, yes.. all mental illnesses can be treated with medication.. but not necessarily controlled

Answer 3

Not all, but most. The other poster is right that things like Autism, Mental Retardation, etc. are not, as far as I know, directly treatable with medication, YET. Some of the things which are sometimes associated with them (for example, anxiety) are currently treatable with meds.

Incidentally, there is an experimental medication which is aimed directly at Autism's symptoms, though not a cure: a nasal spray which impacts the hormone oxytocin. It is supposed to make it possible for those with Autism to bond socially and feel empathy more easily.

Often, things like depression, while they can be treated with meds, are often better treated with lifestyle changes, such as regular exercise, more sleep and better diet. If all of those fail to work, then meds are called for. Meds are too often seen as a magic bullet, a quick fix to compensate for the abuse we put ourselves through.

Sorry for going a little beyond the scope of your question; hope you find this helpful.

Answer 4

Doctors prescribe meds for virtually anything, but the effectveness of meds for mental health conditions varies. For organic diseases like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, even when drugs are unable to "cure", they are the best single treatment option. Depression seems to respond best to drugs and talk/supportive therapy combined, though not all studies support that. Other disorders, like so called personality disorders, don't show much improvement through meds, though there may be some reduction in related anxiety.
Other disorders, like OCD do some promise in being helped by meds.The long and the short of it is that it depends what the cause of the condition is. Not all mental health diagnoses have a cause that fits the medical/disease model. Meds often don't have a great impact in those cases.

Answer 5

Every person is different.
So even the same mental illness can be treatable in one person and not in another.
We have not found the cause of mental illness to consistently be a physical one, so we are nowhere near being able to treat them all.
Every illness is different, every person is different, every treatment should be different.

Answer 6

no. Most are improvable with medication, especailly the severe ones. Some are subtle and aren;t really helped with meeds. Prime among these are the presonality disorders. These are people wo cannot really get along with others because of narcissistic or aggresssive behaviour or volatile and inconsistent temperament or cruel tendencies but who are not really sick enough to be classified into a mental disorder category. They are usually indignantly refusing of meds anyway and will insist they are not ill, often saying it's society or every one else that's ill.

Answer 7

Most medications treat the mental illness and slow the enviable sad end like Alzheimer's. I think only advances in genetic engineering will cure the disease. I'm not a shrink.

Answer 8

No, and some are too trivial to bother with drugs. Also, of those considered very treatable with drugs, there are some people who do not respond.

Answer 9

That depends on your definition of treatable. Some 'treatments' end in a new grave. Death row style.

Answer 10

No some mental disorders are not treatable. Such as Picks disease, which is eventually fatal.