THEMental health of children and teenagers in Italy is still a problem. There Italian society of neuropsychiatry of childhood and adolescence (Sinpia) expresses deep concern about the consequences on assistance to children and adolescents with neuropsychic disorders of Designs of Mental Health Law who will be discussed in the Senate Social Affairs Commission next week starting from the Zaffini text.
Mental health: over 2 million minors suffer from neuropsychic disorders
“I am More than 2 million children and teenagers suffering from neuropsychic disorders of the evolutionary age – he says –Elisa Fazzi, Sinpia president. And today only one part manages to receive the assistance he needs. Between a thousand difficulties and great interregional dysomogeneity, The services of neuropsychiatry of childhood and adolescence try to guarantee prevention, diagnosis, taking charge, therapy, rehabilitation for children and adolescents and for their families. In the face of a continuous increase in requests and dramatic impact of the pandemic on minors ».
Mental health, prevention and rehabilitation
As Antonella Costantino, Past President Sinpia, explains, “the assistance model that emerges both from the bill and from the proposed amendments, flattening the intervention to psychiatric disorders only in adolescence and even imagining new services for the age group 14-25 years, it could further compromise the assistance and rehabilitation to hundreds of thousands of minors and their families. In addition to all support for school and social inclusion “. Minors with autism, rare diseases, dyslexia, childhood cerebral paralysis, complex disabilities. Even eating disorders, language disorders, epilepsy, intellectual disability, depression. And then attention deficit disorders and hyperactivity, movement disorders. There are also neuromuscular pathologies, cerebral tumors, psychosis, self -harm and suicidal behaviors and much more, well beyond only psychiatric disorders “.
One Brain, One Healt
In fact, mental health prevention cannot be limited only to the early identification of the symptoms of psychiatric disorders in adolescence, but must be faced since the first years of life. This must happen through the promotion of neurosviluppo and early identification, the care and rehabilitation of all childhood and adolescence neuropsychiatric disorders, with a view to “One Brain, One Health”. Above all, Children and adolescents are not miniature adultsand the needs, interventions and protections necessary for a fourteen year old are very different from those for a 25 year old.
What does it need to guarantee mental health?
“To ensure truly effective assistance – explains Elisa Fazzi – it is essential that all minors, even teenagers, are treated in dedicated and separated services by those for adults, with multidisciplinary teams specialized in the evolutionary age, tailored therapeutic paths that take into account cognitive, emotional and relational development, adequate physical spaces, and the active involvement of family, school and life environment”.
When a period in the hospital is needed
It should finally be addressed and solved the problem of hospital positions in Neuropsychiatry of childhood and adolescence, that today are 403 throughout Italy in the face of a need of at least 700and strengthen the resources for NPIA services more generally. Too many children and above all too many teenagers come still hospitalized in adult departmentswith dramatic consequences.
Mental health, what do the guidelines say?
“Finally – concludes Antonella Costantino – the scope of the services of neuropsychiatry of childhood and adolescence has recent and still perfectly appropriate rules, such as Administration lines on childhood neuropsychiatric disorders and adolescence approved at a unified conference in 2019.
More than giving new addresses, it would be necessary to reiterate that existing ones must be applied, homogeneously and in all regions. Protecting the specificity of childhood and adolescence, promoting neurosviluppo and guaranteeing responses to all minors with neuropsychic disorders and their families is essential for the future of society “.
What is the Italian society of neuropsychiatry of childhood and adolescence (Sinpia)
There Symplate It is a scientific association that has the purpose of the protection of mental health and adolescence, the development of research and prevention, diagnosis, care and rehabilitation of neurological, neuropsychological and/or psychiatric pathologies of childhood and adolescence (from 0 to 18 years) and all disorders of the child’s development in its various lines of expression (motor, communication-linguistic, cognitive, cognitive, affective. and relational).
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