By: Dr. Mohd. Aleem Siddiqui M.D.,D.P.M. ( Associate Editor-ICN Group )
LUCKNOW: Mental health of Indians is a relatively out of focus and side lined health care problem. Now what about the mental health of those who can’t really complain.. the less than 3 years children…. are they mental health proof… definitely not.What the Kolkata Symposium highlighted is this glaring omission only.
How do we address the mental health issues issues in infants and toddlers so that they grow up to be adults with better mental health. It’s an approach on preventive aspects of mental health, act before the mental illness sets in. Very important aspect, gaining rapid ground in developed world but very ignored in Indian scenario.
14th Biennial conference of Indian Association of Child and adolescent mental health (IACAM) in association with World Psychiatric Association. Kolkata, 10/11/12th November’ 2017.
Highlights of Symposium:
1. Infant mental health is in its infancy
2. ACE study at Kaiser Permanante is a landmark study correlating infant mental health to adults determinants of physical health and psychiatry disorders in adulthood
3. Germany, US, UK , Canada, Australia and USA have infant mental health program developments in varied levels as a policy, pilot studies , service developmental etc
4. Psychiatry classifications like ICD 10 and DSM V focus on feeding and attachment disorders
5. DC0-3 R is a new classification to include more symptoms and additional disorders to supplement DSM ICD but with more infant toddler relevant stuff such as dysregulation disorders, sensory disorders, etc
6. Existent Adult psychiatric disorder evaluation approaches are difficult to conduct in infant toddler
7. Child and adolescent assessments focus on history but MSE for infants is now developed for infant evaluation
8. Crowell procedure is valid for infants assessments. Many assessments available now for autism infant evaluation , infant mental health and recent video based assessments
9. Many psychotherapies have come up, GAIMH Germany has a systematic review and even Cochran’s review for psychotherapies in IMH can be referred
10. Psychopharmacology is not evidence based in infants and toddlers. New York Times with IMH group has published work on Still in a Crib yet on medications which states problem of infants and toddlers receiving risperidone, quetiapine etc in USA alarming trends however it appears that non psychiatrists and parents are giving it.
11. Perinatal psychiatric disorders and effects on infants and toddler mental health and serotonin syndrome in infants needs attention.
The symposium was presented by Dr. Darpan Kaur, Dr. Amrit Pattojoshi and Dr. Mohd Aleem Siddiqui.
