Being A Mental Health Associate (MHA)

Being a Mental Health Associate (MHA) can be very spiritually and physically draining. Every day, you are exposed to people whose mind and emotions are failing them. You have to take care of people who have schizophrenia and are experiencing mild to severe psychosis. There may also be people suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. People suffering from PTSD sometimes experience major depression and anxiety disorders, resulting in severe panic attacks. The symptoms of a panic attack range from dyspnea, vertigo, diaphoresis, to angina pectoris, paresthesia and syncope. Often times, anxiety disorders can lead to the manifestation of phobias, such as the fear of leaving the house or being in crowded places. Others may be there for treatment of anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, which are severe eating disorders. Some other disorders that can sometimes be debilitating, requiring inpatient treatment are; obsessive-compulsive disorder, pica (a condition that causes a person to eat things that are not meant for consumption) and somatoform disorders (patients have physical symptoms, but no physical cause can be found). …show more content…
A lot of patients on the mental health floor also see a neurologist, as many of these conditions can be brought on after a cerebrovascular accident. They are seen by a number of specialties because the symptoms seen in these patients range from aphasia, cephalagia, dysphasia, and ataxia to cognitive problems, convulsions, disorientation, seizures and incoherent speech. Some of these patients are not even conscious of what they are doing. Delirium and pseudodementia are common in patients who abuse drugs and alcohol for long periods of time. Another form of dementia found in chronic alcoholism is Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. Central nervous system dementia can be found in patients suffering from