It is almost a month since the International Day for Persons with Disabilities (December 3) passed. Yet, we must pause and consider the importance of novel and innovative solutions that enhance two important outcomes for the people affected, i.e., activities of daily life and quality of life. By calling for “transformative solutions that will lead to inclusive development, leaving no one behind”, the United Nations has shifted the focus back on innovations that reduce disability. In the important medical field of “neuropsychiatry” that straddles the brain-mind interface, there have been several treatment innovations with the potential to enhance outcomes — and the focus of this article.
Neuropsychiatric disorders are, by definition, disabling and present themselves across the lifespan. These range from autism, Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and intellectual disability in childhood (317 million), and to mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorder, addictions, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder through adolescence and adult life (167 million adolescents and 970 million people, globally), traumatic brain injury, spinal injury, epilepsy and headache across the lifespan, stroke, neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s dementia and Parkinson’s disease that appear in old age (276 million neurologically affected individuals in all).
