clove and Mental-Disorders

The therapeutic effects and side effects of mefloquine in falciparum malaria were investigated in an open prospective trial involving 20 patients. None of them had a history of neurologic or psychiatric disorders. Mefloquine was given in a total dose of 1500 mg base. The cure rate was 100%, fever and parasitemia subsided within 3 days. Side effects were vomitus and nausea in 25% of the patients. No neurological or psychiatric disorders were observed. Mefloquine was shown to be a safe therapeutic agent in the dosage used. However, regular follow-up examinations should be done in short intervals because of the possibility of late neuropsychiatric side effects; the patients and their relatives should be informed about this fact.

Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Africa, Western; Animals; Female; Germany; Humans; Madagascar; Malaria; Male; Mefloquine; Mental Disorders; Nausea; Nervous System Diseases; Plasmodium falciparum; Prospective Studies; Travel; Uganda; Vomiting

Religion and traditional healers still occupy a prominent place in the management of mental ill subjects in Madagascar. This study aimed to assess primary care for mentally ill subjects. We conducted a retrospective descriptive study in the Department of Psychiatry at the University Hospital Befelatananain, Antananarivo over a period of 16 months from January 2014 to April 2015. The prevalence of psychosis was estimated to be 25%. Feminine gender (53%), merina ethnicity (77%), students (45%), a secondary school qualification (40%), singles (72%), Protestantism (45%) as well as an average socio-economic level (57.5%) were predominant. Clinical parameters mainly included an abrupt onset (52%), a first invocation to religion (40%), and a history of similar cases (90%). Schizophrenia was the most frequent disease in half of the cases. The median improvement time under both traditional and religious treatments was more than 10 days in hospital. The patients who underwent early psychiatric care improved in less than 10 days in 75% of cases. A delay in psychiatric care is a reality in Madagascar which aggravates the prognosis of patients with psychosis.

Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Female; Humans; Madagascar; Male; Medicine, Traditional; Mental Disorders; Middle Aged; Primary Health Care; Prognosis; Religion and Medicine; Retrospective Studies; Young Adult

Topics: Caregivers; Developing Countries; Humans; Institutionalization; Madagascar; Medicine, Traditional; Mental Disorders; Psychotherapy; Social Change; Spiritualism; Witchcraft

For the Sakalava of northwest Madagascar, spirit possession and madness occupy opposing poles on a spectrum of experiences which, in indigenous terms, range from a good, powerful, and inescapable state to a destructive, dangerous, and frightening illness. While possession by the most powerful spirits is honorable and permanent, the excessive suffering that some mediums experience leads them to seek a way out; in other cases, chronic madness frustrates the afflicted and their kin who search for, but rarely find, a cure. Psychiatrists and protestant exorcists offer last resort options to these individuals, but the efficacy of their treatments varies greatly. While patients and healers are all Malagasy, sub-ethnic divisions are, nevertheless, crucial to defining the tensions that arise within these two alternative therapeutic contexts. The relevance of each approach and efficacy of its associated treatments hinge on the success of the psychiatrist and exorcist to mediate between these ethnic divisions. In turn, each practitioner is faced with the task of integrating conflicting epistemological realities surrounding illness. While exorcisms may be painful and frustrating to patients, the exorcists are more successful as healers, since they first accept and then transform the patients' explanations for and experiences of possession and madness. During protestant healing rituals, possession is viewed as an appropriate idiom for describing illness, and madness is redefined as normative, not deviant, behavior. Failure among psychiatrists can be traced to their inability to comprehend or accept their patients' experiences, a disjunction exacerbated by their acceptance of a cognitive model based on western sensibilities.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Culture; Female; Humans; Madagascar; Mental Disorders; Mental Healing; Psychiatry; Religion; Spiritualism

Topics: Anxiety; Culture; Depression; Epilepsy; Female; Hospitals, Psychiatric; Humans; Madagascar; Male; Mental Disorders; Occupational Therapy; Psychopathology; Recreation; Rehabilitation, Vocational; Schizophrenia