Description

Psychiatry

Anxiety Disorders

Feeling anxiety from time to time is part of everyday life. However, if these concerns are experienced at a high intensity for a long time, they may indicate an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorder may adversely affect a person’s functionality and daily activities. Since untreated anxiety disorders can lead to problems such as deterioration in social relationships, failures in work or school life, and alcohol use, it is important to perform timely and accurate intervention.

Anxiety disorders include panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, phobias, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Psychotherapy teaches the person to deal with these concerns more effectively. When necessary, medications can be administered simultaneously with psychotherapy. 

At Liv Hospital, psychiatrists and psychologists evaluate and diagnose the patient with a team work approach. Physicians specializing in their fields listen to you carefully and follow a treatment protocol tailored to your needs. International literature shows that the combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and medications leads to the best outcome in treatment. These treatment methods are successfully applied at Liv Hospital.

Depression

Depression is a disease that negatively affects one’s mood, thought processes and physical health. Disturbances in these areas can also affect other areas of the person’s life. A depressed person feels tired, sad, stressed and begins to not enjoy the activities they used to enjoy. Repeated pains that do not resolve in the body without any organic cause may be a precursor of depression.

People with depressive symptoms are evaluated by a team of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists working together at Liv Hospital to treat them with a personalized psychotherapy and medication protocol, where necessary. Postpartum depression is also one of the disorders that should be of special interest. Do not hesitate to seek help if you suffer from postpartum unhappiness or tension.

Bipolar Disorder

Another name of bipolar disorder is manic depressive disorder. These patients experience depressive episodes in which they feel overly depressed and manic episodes during which they are extremely active. The disorder may begin in late adolescence or early adulthood.

Bipolar disorder is a treatable condition. Bipolar patients may continue their lives normally with an appropriate treatment. Correct treatment consists of a tailor-made drug treatment and a psychotherapy where the person learns about this disease and the coping strategies. The most important and essential part of the treatment is to receive preventive treatment. Drug blood level measurements are made safely in our hospital.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

The main characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is recurrent obsession and compulsion symptoms, leading to significant stress. Obsessions and compulsions are time consuming and can significantly impair a person’s normal routine, work-related functions, social activities, and relationships. An OCD patient may have obsessions, compulsions, or both.

Obsessions are repetitive and intrusive thoughts, feelings, ideas or sensations. Obsession is a mental condition but compulsion is a behavior. Compulsion is a conscious, standardized repetitive behavior such as counting, controlling or avoiding. A person with obsessive-compulsive disorder understands the unreality of obsession and experiences obsession and compulsion as alien to the individual.

Although compulsive action tries to reduce anxiety related to obsession, this may not always be successful. Completion of compulsive action may not affect anxiety or on the contrary may increase it. OCD is a disease that can be resolved with regular psychotherapy and, if necessary, medication.

Eating Disorders

A group of diseases accompanied by excessive weight loss or conversely weight gain are grouped under the name of eating disorder. Eating disorders are a serious psychiatric disorder in which interventions should be evidence-based. Cognitive therapies and interpersonal therapies are well established in bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorders.

Treatment in eating disorders can be discussed under several headings. Considering treatment of anorexia and bulimia nervosa and obesity, subtitles may show diversity. Hospitalization, pharmacological treatments, psychotherapies, and surgical and medical treatments for obesity are included in these subtitles. Treatment approaches should be multidisciplinary. If necessary, an internal medicine specialist or a dietitian should be included in treatment plans. It should be ascertained that the disorders are heterogeneous in nature, and treatment should be planned by taking account of personality organizations, conflicts, family and social environments, genetic and biological characteristics of the patients.

Dementia

Dementia is a general name given to a group of disorders accompanied by forgetfulness. The most recognized disease in this group is Alzheimer’s disease. Diseases such as diabetes, hypertension may also cause dementia if not treated. Considering the extension of life expectancy, we can say that dementia is disorder of the new age. It is an insidious disease with a slow onset. Being a woman, low level of education, cardiovascular diseases, high cholesterol, smoking and intense alcohol consumption, family history of similar diseases increase the risk.

Preventive medicine is important because it’s irreversible once it has started. With some drugs, progression may be slowed or stopped. Reducing the symptoms of the disease and ensuring that patients maintain their daily lives are among the therapeutic goals. There are many published articles about how regular physical exercise is protective. Starting a different activity in advanced ages is recommended. For example, learning a new language or starting a new sport. Correctable causes of dementia include goitre-like diseases and vitamin deficiencies so these should definitely be reviewed.

The problems vary according to the stage of the disease, and in the advanced stage, care in bed is necessary so arrangements should be made according to this. Physical and psychological support may be required for caregivers at each stage. Burnout syndrome may develop in these individuals, especially if they are alone. Continuous desire to stroll, moving away from home, falls are some of the problems experienced by patients. Patients can be ill-tempered or even aggressive. During initial stages, there may be accidents at home due to forgetfulness in the case of patients living alone. It is common to leave the stove on and bath with hot water. The presence of someone providing care at home is supportive.

The most important problem is early diagnosis. Particularly, people with such problem in the family should be routinely checked after a certain age. Early diagnosis is also possible in those with genetic aspect, such as Alzheimer’s. A symptom such as forgetfulness should not be considered as normal by age and should be investigated. Do not forget that some diseases that cause dementia are treatable diseases. At Liv Hospital, all kinds of support services are provided for diagnosis and treatment in cooperation with neurology and psychiatry departments.

Studies of Meeting with Self

In today’s world, it is an indisputable fact that communication and human relations gain importance day by day. It is known that individuals who communicate more positively have a better private and family life as well as a better business life. One of the challenges of our age is that people feel meaningless from time to time because of the rapid flow of life. People may think that they are struggling to catch up with life and are involved in a non-target hassle. Specialist psychologists in our team listen to the clients who apply to them and draw up a “personalized” development plan that focuses on their demands, the problems they want to solve and the areas they want to make progress in.

Psychological Tests

Our Department applies its approaches with a holistic perspective. The holistic approach addresses both the body and the mind. It is known that psychological support has a positive effect on the course of treatment not only in the case of psychological distress but also in the case of physical distress. For this reason, our team of expert clinical psychologists and physicians specializing in various fields provides support to the units within the hospital with individual and group programs. With evidence-based psychological support programs, medical treatment is moving one step further.