Insights in Biomedicine Open Access

Biomedical therapy focuses on treating and reworking the brain. It falls under the branch of mental health, which is an often stigmatized topic. Biomedical therapies are meant to help patients with physiological symptoms and psychological disorders by using drugs, electroconvulsive treatment. The use of medicine to treat mental disorders is known as psych pharmacotherapy. Medicines meant to treat depression or alter moods are called anti-depressant drugs. People who use anti-depressants are more than just sad. These medicines are prescribed by a doctor to treat clinical depression, a mood disorder characterized by feelings of extreme hopelessness and lack of interest in life.

Individuals can be prescribed biologically based treatments or psychotropic medications which are used to treat mental disorders. While these are often used in combination with psychotherapy, they also are taken by individuals not in therapy. This is known as biomedical therapy. Medications are used to treat psychological disorders are called psychotropic medications and are prescribed by medical doctors including psychiatrists.

Medicines used to relieve anxiety are called anti-anxiety drugs. Anxiety is a condition characterized by chronic worry, unease, or nervousness. You may feel mildly anxious before a test or major life event, or maybe you've experienced extreme anxiety for longer periods. Mental illnesses are not uncommon, and treatment for it is more readily obtainable. The biomedical therapy definition states that it is a type of therapy that uses a physiologically based treatment to address a mental illness. Common biomedical therapy treatments include drug therapy, electroconvulsive therapy and surgery.

Biomedical therapy is often used in conjunction with other therapies such as talk therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy. Talk therapy focuses on allowing patients to talk out their problems and revisit potential past traumas with the guidance of a counselor or therapist. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on learning techniques to change thought patterns and avoid habits of self-deprecating thinking. Because biomedical therapy supports the idea that a person's thoughts and actions are linked to their overall health and its ability to work in conjunction with other treatment strategies is attractive to health care providers.

Pharmacotherapy is the most well-known type of biomedical therapy. It includes the use of a medication to treat an underlying mental illness. There are multiple classifications for pharmacotherapy drugs and countless medications that are used in each type. Typically, each disorder has a different type of medication that may treat it. A healthcare provider will guide a patient on how to start, observe a medication's efficacy, and decide if the prescription or dose may need to be changed to reach optimum results. Pharmacotherapy medications work by either mimicking a neurotransmitter or interrupting a neurotransmitter pathway.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) is a highly effective type of therapy that employs electrical currents to the brain to alleviate extreme episodes of depression. This method works by stimulating the brain with monitored levels of electricity to induce seizures. Afterwards, a high percentage of patients report a reduction in depressive symptoms. This is primarily useful when individuals have not found relief through other methods. Repeated use of ECT may result in memory loss and is thus a controversial treatment.