The key difference between mental illness and neurological disorder is that mental illness stems from changes in an individual’s emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and their interactions with the external world, whereas neurological disorders stem from dysfunction within the nervous system.
Mental illnesses and neurological disorders have a deep connection to each other. This is because neurological disorders involve damage to the nervous system, and this damage can sometimes alter the communication between the neurons. When this happens, it can manifest problems in behavior, body control, memory, and mood, ultimately leading to mental illness.
CONTENTS
1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Mental Illness
3. What is Neurological Disorder
4. Similarities – Mental Illness and Neurological Disorder
5. Mental Illness vs. Neurological Disorder in Tabular Form
6. Summary – Mental Illness vs. Neurological Disorder
What is Mental Illness?
Mental illness is also known as a psychiatric disorder. Mental illnesses can be caused by various reasons such as genetics, stress, injury, underlying illness, environmental exposure before birth, brain chemistry, and certain medications. Some well-known mental illnesses are depression, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, autism, and anxiety. Moreover, mental illnesses have common symptoms such as feeling very ill, problems with thinking and memory, difficulties in communication and interaction with each other, problems with sleep, appetite, and weight, physical symptoms such as headaches or other pains, and changing behavior. Risk factors for this condition include family history, stressful life, ongoing medical conditions like diabetes, brain damage, traumatic experiences, use of alcohol or recreational drugs, childhood history, having few friends or few healthy relationships, and a previous mental illness.
Figure 01: Mental Illness
Mental illness can be diagnosed through physical examinations, lab tests, and psychological evaluation. Furthermore, treatment options for mental illness may include giving medications like antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, mood-stabilizing medications, antipsychotic medications, psychotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, deep brain stimulation, and vagus nerve stimulation.
What is Neurological Disorder?
Neurological disorder occurs due to problems with nerves or problems with the tissues that surround the nerves by birth defects, injury, infection, nutritional deficiencies, and other diseases. Some well-known examples of neurological disorders are myelopathy, epilepsy, myelitis, and Alzheimer’s disease. Moreover, common symptoms of the neurological disorder are persistent headache, a headache that changes, loss of feeling, weakness of muscle, memory loss, impaired ability, lack of coordination, muscle rigidity, tremors or seizures, back pain, muscle wasting, slurred speech, and new language impairment. The risk factors for this condition are early exposure to chlamydia pneumonia, Epstein-Barr virus, human herpes virus-6, measles, canine distemper, and other viruses or bacteria in the life, living in an area of less sun exposure, and personal history of smoking.
Neurological disorders can be diagnosed through physical examination, neurological examination, and imaging tests such as CT scan, electroencephalogram, MRI, PET scan, arteriogram, and cerebral spinal fluid analysis. Furthermore, treatment options for neurological disorders may include lifestyle changes, physiotherapy, pain management, medications to either restore function or prevent a worsening of the condition, cognitive therapy, and behavioral therapy.
What are the Similarities Between Mental Illness and Neurological Disorder?
- Mental illnesses and neurological disorders have a deep connection with each other.
- Neurological disorders can result in mental illness.
- Both conditions can cause complications.
- They can be diagnosed through physical examination.
- They can be treated through specific medications and therapies.
What is the Difference Between Mental Illness and Neurological Disorder?
Mental illness stems from changes in an individual’s emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and their interactions with the external world, whereas neurological disorders stem from dysfunction within the nervous system. Thus, this is the key difference between mental illness and neurological disorder. Furthermore, risk factors for mental illness include family history, stressful life, ongoing medical conditions like diabetes, brain damage, traumatic experiences, use of alcohol or recreational drugs, childhood history, having few friends or few healthy relationships, and a previous mental illness. On the other hand, risk factors for neurological disorder include early exposure to chlamydia pneumonia, Epstein-Barr virus, human herpes virus-6, measles, canine distemper, and other viruses or bacteria in the life, living in an area of less sun exposure, and personal history of smoking.
The infographic below presents the differences between mental illness and neurological disorder in tabular form for side-by-side comparison.
Summary – Mental Illness vs. Neurological Disorder
Mental illness and neurological disorder are two associated medical conditions. This is because a neurological disorder can trigger mental illness in people. However, they are different conditions with different aetiologies. Mental illness is a medical condition that involves changes in emotion, thinking, or behaviour, while neurological disorder is a medical condition that affects the brain as well as the nerves located throughout the body and spinal cord. This summarizes the difference between mental illness and neurological disorder.
Reference:
1. “What Is Mental Illness?” Psychiatry.Org
2. “Neurological Disorders.” Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Image Courtesy:
1. “Lets talk about mental health” By The People Speak! (CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED) via Flickr