Psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety are common with certain chronic or acute medical conditions like diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, or cancer. What is the connection? People suffering from long-term illness often experience stress, pain, isolation, and hopelessness – all of which can trigger deep emotional responses. But these psychiatric symptoms can also be part of the body's molecular or physiologic reaction to the medical disease. These medical conditions commonly include:
- Endocrine and immune disorders such as diabetes, thyroid disease, and lupus
- Cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases such as asthma, heart attacks, and COPD
- Neurological conditions such as stroke, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's diseases, dementias, and epilepsy
- Illnesses that are chronically painful such as spinal herniation, rheumatoid arthritis or cancer, for example
Illness can actually be made worse by anxiety, depression or sleep problems, so it's necessary to treat emotional and well as physical symptoms.
When medications for the psychiatric aspect of an illness are prescribed, the psychiatrist works closely with the patient's other physicians to treat the whole person and ensure that both body and mind are functioning as well as possible.