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What is Mental Retardation?

Mental retardation is a medical condition in which loved ones go through cognitive decline ranging from borderline to mild to moderate and eventually in extreme cases, severe and then profound. Such is the state of their mental condition that they are unable to function properly and remember events ranging from past to the most recent and find it hard to mix up socially with people around them. They can also be found in a state of depression and other symptoms range from getting irritated quickly to not being in a mood to converse and sulking all the time.

Such loved ones are also prone to erratic behavior ranging from attacking people around them to experiencing severe mood swings. It is a very serious issue that requires a very methodical approach to prevent to ensure the patient is back in his sense and can function normally.

How do you diagnose mental retardation?

In medical terminology, mental retardation refers to substantial limitations in present functioning. It generally begins before the age of 18 and is glaringly visible in loved ones suffering from sub-average intellectual functioning, concurrently existing with limitations in communication, self-care, home living, social skills, community use, self-direction, health and safety, functional academics, leisure, and work.

How can we prevent mental retardation?

There are certain therapies meant for preventing mental retardation. These therapies for mental retardation have proven helpful for people with mental disabilities and have been written about below in detail.

• Occupational Therapy: Occupational therapy among all therapies for mental retardation entails engaging the patient in meaningful and purposeful activities, self-care that includes grooming, dressing, feeding and bathing, employment activities and skills, leisure activities such as knitting and playing games and domestic activities such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry.

• Speech Therapy: Speech therapy aimed at curing mental retardation includes improving communication skills, expressing language skills, speech articulation and vocabulary. 

• Physical Therapy: Physical therapy involves enhancing the patient’s quality of life by maximizing mobility and through self-locomotion, providing adaptive solutions to mobility problems and increasing sensory integration. 

• Psychotherapy: Another therapy meant to address the issue of mental retardation is psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is more of an interpersonal intervention, administered by a mental health professional such as a clinical psychologist, and employs a wide range of specific psychological techniques. Amongst these, cognitive-behavioral therapy entails addressing disorders based on modifying the patterns of thought and behavior associated with a certain disorder. CBT therapy is administered in various forms such as dialectical behavior therapy, psychoanalysis that addresses underlying psychic conflicts and defenses, systemic therapy that is used for a network of relationships, etc. Amongst the many psychotherapies, there are certain ones meant to address only one kind of disorder. As an example of this is Interpersonal and social rhythm therapy is meant to address a specific disorder. 

• Orthomolecular Therapy: This therapy is based on the concept of nutrition. It is a known fact that a healthy diet and good nutrition is imperative for good health. There are loved ones with cognitive disabilities who do not eat well. For such loved ones defiant on eating, nutritional supplements come handy. Having mentioned this, it is important to know that consumption of nutritional supplements does not enhance cognitive functioning, performance or learning in individuals. As per orthomolecular therapy, vitamins and minerals can treat various conditions including intellectual disabilities or IDs (formerly, mental retardation). Those practicing orthomolecular therapy claim confidently that cognitive disorders can be improved by ‘molecular balance’ via nutritional supplements. 

• Talk Therapy: Talk therapy refers to psychotherapy meant to cure various psychiatric disorders. However, it cannot treat, arrest or cure disabilities. There are certain types of psychotherapy that can be a helpful adjunct for some people with mild ID and for those having psychiatric disorders such as depression. Talk therapy relies more on a patient’s cognitive, emotional and verbal abilities in order to promote change. Hence, people with ID may not actually benefit to that extent from this.

There is medication as well to treat loved ones suffering from cognitive disabilities. There are a variety of drugs that can be administered to loved ones diagnosed with intellectual disorders and some of these have been written about below:

• Citalopram (Celexa), Escitalopram oxalate (Lexapro), Fluoxetine (Prozac), Fluvoxamine (Luvox), Paroxetine HCI (Paxil) and Sertraline (Zoloft) are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors meant to treat IDs.
• Desvenlafaxine (Khedezla), Desvenlafaxine Succinate (Pristiq), Duloxetine (Cymbalta), Venlafaxine (Effexor) and Levomilnacipran (Fetzima) are selective serotonin and norepinephrine inhibitors meant to treat IDs.
• Vortioxetine (Trentellix) and Vilazodone (Viibryd) are novel serotonergic drugs meant to treat IDs.
• Amitriptyline (Elavil), Imipramine (Tofranil), Nortriptyline (Pamelor) and Doxepin (Sinequan) are older tricyclic antidepressants meant to treat IDs.
• Isocarboxazid (Marplan), Phenelzine (Nardil), Selegiline (EMSAM) and Tranylcypromine (Parnate) and monoamine oxidase inhibitors meant to treat IDs.
• Noradrenergic is a Tetracyclic antidepressant and Mirtazapine (Remeron) is a specific serotonergic antidepressant meant to treat IDs.
• L-methyl folate (Deplin) is another medicine that has proven successful in treating depression, having been considered a medical food/nutraceutical by the FDA. This is considered to regulate neurotransmitters that control moods and is considered useful to treat loved ones suffering from IDs.

What is the primary goal of treatment for mental retardation?

The main goal behind treating mental retardation is to make life better for the patient and improve his ability to perform certain activities that were a little hard to do earlier. So far, in medical science, there has been no medicine or therapy that has been fully effective in helping a patient suffering from an intellectual disability fully recover from it. The best that has been possible is to ease those struggles so that the patient does not suffer as much as he was suffering earlier.

Through the various therapies and the way in which they are administered to a patient suffering IDs, as written above, efforts are made in order to make the patient as functional as possible from a totally dysfunctional state as he generally is in while suffering from mental retardation. IDs can really be harsh on a person suffering from them and these therapies are only aimed at easing that pain and curbing that struggle to the best possible extent.