Treatment Modalities

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Treatment Modalities

Treatment modalities are simply different methods of treatment for medical disorders. These are ways that medical professionals use in treatment a medical condition. Another way to describe treatment modalities is the care options, approaches and theories that are used for a disease. For example, hemorrhoids are a medical condition, which one can treat by giving a minor pain relief and change of diet for treatment. Medical practitioners examine different treatment modalities to use on a patient’s condition and end up determining the best care. Hemorrhoids can be surgically removed through a medical operation.

Mental disorders are common forms of psychological condition. Moreover, they bear characters such as the disorganization of mind, personality and emotions and mental disorders can seriously affect the normal functioning of an individual’s social being. Mental disorders render individuals useless and cannot function properly in society. However, there are different forms of treatment that one can offer to individuals with mental disorders. One of the treatments is psychotherapy. Besides psychotherapy, there are wide ranges of medication that can also be used on individuals with mental disorders. The combination of medication and psychotherapy is usually successful in individuals, and it leads to better results. Psychotherapy, behavior therapy and cognitive therapy are all means of treating individuals with mental disorders.

Psychotherapy is a form of treatment used by health professionals, which uses a range of interpersonal, psychological techniques. Psychotherapy employs cognitive behavioral therapy that is used for a wide variety of mental disorders based on the patterns of thought. Health professionals sometimes use systemic and family therapy together with the individual’s network of relationships (Heinrich and Seegenschmiedt, 2007). Psychotherapy encompasses psychiatric medication to treat mental conditions.

Radiotherapy is another form of treatment modality, which uses radioactivity to cure medical disorders most of which are cancer related. Radiation therapy uses ionizing radiation in controlling growth of malignant cells, which cause cancer. There are different types of cancer such as breast cancer, throat cancer and tumors, which undergo treatment by use of radiotherapy (Quallen, 2003). The ionizing radiation works by destroying the DNA of cancerous cells in the tissues. Since exposure of normal tissue to the radioactive rays is dangerous, shaped beams of radiation aim at the cancerous tissue and avoid contact to normal tissue. Some of the diseases treated with radioactive therapy include eczema, psoriasis, abscess and osteoarthritis among others. A photon or a charged particle causes DNA damage from radiation therapy, which ionizes the atoms of the DNA chain. The ionization is both direct and indirect ionization. Indirect ionization forms free hydroxyl radicals damage the DNA and cause death of the malignant cells.

Another form of treatment modality is chemotherapy, which is the treatment of cancer with a combination of antineoplastic drugs. Since most cancerous cells divide rapidly, the role of chemotherapy is to kill these cells and slow down the rapid growth (Quallen, 2003). One side effect of chemotherapy is that it also kills normal cells in the body such as bone marrow cells. Chemotherapy treats autoimmune diseases such as, polymyositis, lupus and the suppression of transplant rejections. Combined modality chemotherapy constitutes the use of drugs with radiation therapy or surgery. Another variation of chemotherapy is electro chemotherapy, which is the treatment of cancer with the injection of chemotherapeutic drugs followed by electric pulse application. The use of high voltage electric pulses is to enable the chemotherapeutic drugs to pass through the cell membranes.

Reference

Heinrich M & Seegenschmiedt M. H.. (2007). Radiotherapy for Non-Malignant Disorders: contemporary concepts and clinical results. New York: Springer.Quallen B. S., (2003). Chemotherapy. New York: Thomson and gale.