Mental distress was at crisis levels prior to the current pandemic and has been on the rise due to the public health measures that we've all had to endure over the last many months. Patients are turning to natural health practitioners for help like never before. The focus of today's panel is to give practitioners the tools that they need to care for their patients who are struggling with their mental health. So we will be covering two key areas in the program today. The first is, how do you engage and create trust with your patients and what are the therapeutic tools that are effective in activating change? And then in the second part, we'll talk about the key natural products that you use for nutritional support and what use of such products means for drug interactions and weaning off prescription drugs and so on.
Key Takeaways
- Dr Tori Hudson ND “Women are bearing the brunt of the pandemic with a rising incidence of insomnia, anxiety and feeling overwhelmed. In addition to these big three, experiencing weight gain and depression are prominent. The pandemic is taking a toll on everybody in so many ways”.
- Dr Philip Rouchotas ND “You must quantify your mental health intake. It's a critical part of the therapeutic process. You can use the validated questionnaires like the Beck Depression Inventory and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale or the PHQ questionnaire. Have your patients numerically quantify their mood every two days per week. Quantify their physical symptoms. Quantify sleep latency, how long it takes, and how often are you waking up? Then go through it every single appointment. As the patient starts to see their progress from week to week they get inspired and excited about their improvement. It's really essential to get some kind of metric to ascertain how they were at the beginning compared to how they are later on”.
- Dr Jonathan Prousky ND "Ask patients to tell you everything they do in a 24 hour period. When you get a twenty-four-hour replay as to what happens in a typical day, you get a really good insight into what's happening with their life. People forget a lot of these details but when you ask them that specific question, they will open up and they will reveal to you what is necessary".
- Dr Tori Hudson "When I engage with men who are struggling with a mental health issue, I look for a connecting point. Start with a casual conversation that helps build trust and then look for something in the popular media to make the connection. For example, Tiger Woods going through his troubles, or a celebrity going through a divorce or misusing alcohol or having panic attacks in front of the camera. Look for these stories then ask gently if that feels familiar to you at all? The fact that some high-status individual is struggling, gives men permission to open up about their own issues".
- Dr Jonathan Prousky "When it comes to engaging people who are struggling with depression, I tell them, listen, the last thing we want to do here is to add more pressure to your life. But where I start is with their responsibility. And I ask them, what do you feel responsible for? It can be very motivational because when people start aiming towards the things that they're responsible for, they start moving back into regular life. It could be as simple as I need to be more responsible for my hygiene, the way I look, the way I'm bathing and so on".
- E Brian Johnson "The moment you set yourself up for a stretch goal, you're setting yourself up to fail. It's about making small, incremental changes that are doable and can be easily integrated into your day-to-day routine and use that to slowly change towards your best self. The Japanese have a word for it: Kaizen. It’s about making small, incremental changes and always looking towards your best self".
- Dr Jonathan Prousky "I don't want to single out our physician colleagues for failing to provide informed consent. I think we all have to be better and more precise in how we talk to our patients about what we are prescribing them. Drugs like SSRIs have significant metabolic effects. So I think we have to be more precise in how we talk to people about what drugs do. But I also think there's a lot of stress on the system between providers and patients. The system itself isn't geared towards providing the most robust, informed consent. I think a lot of pharmacists are given that role and yet they're under a tremendous amount of pressure, too. So I don't think we have a system that can properly articulate itself to the needs of patients because the needs of providers themselves aren't properly articulated. So as a result, no one's getting what they actually need. And that, to me, is very regretful".
Key Quotation
“The system itself isn't geared towards providing informed consent. I don't think we have a system that can properly articulate itself to the needs of patients because the needs of providers themselves aren't properly articulated. So as a result, no one's getting what they actually need. And that, to me, is very regretful." Dr Jonathan Prousk
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The opinions expressed in this Nutramedica program are those of the guests and contributors. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Nutritional Fundamentals For Health Inc.
This video is intended for licensed or registered health professionals and students of health professions only. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Information contained in these programs is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
