Kochi hospitals to use yoga to treat psychiatric disorders

KOCHI

: City hospitals are planning to introduce yoga as a treatment option for those with psychiatric disorders. This comes amidst growing evidence for yoga’s neurobiological effects in people with

psychiatric disorders

and yoga as a therapeutic intervention appearing promising for those with psychiatric disorders.


“Yoga has been planned both as an alternative system and as a meditation programme in our hospital. It will be part of the Behavioural Sciences programme of the institute,” said Dr Sanjeev Singh, medical superintendent, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS).

Recently, Ernakulam General Hospital introduced yoga for inpatients in psychiatry ward. They are given yoga lessons daily in the morning and evening. Yoga as a treatment option has been popularized by institutes like Nimhans, Bengaluru. “We are planning to introduce it here,” said Dr Sanju George, professor of psychiatry and psychology at Rajagiri College of Social Sciences.

Psychiatrists admit that there is increasing scientific evidence to prove the effectiveness of yoga in controlling psychiatric disorders. A recent paper titled ‘Yoga for psychiatric disorders: from fad to evidence-based intervention?’, which is co-authored by Dr Sanju, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry draws attention to this fact. It states that methodologically randomized controlled trials have evaluated yoga as a therapeutic intervention for major depression and schizophrenia. “Yoga-based interventions have been found to be efficacious in treating major psychiatric illnesses such as depression. Yoga and mindfulness in severe mental illness found reasonable evidence for symptom reduction in psychosis and depression, although evidence is sparse for bipolar disorder,” the paper notes. Also it goes ahead to state that recent studies reported successful treatment of major depression using yoga as the only treatment.

“Apart from their beneficial role in major psychiatric disorders, there is also preliminary evidence for the usefulness of yoga-based interventions in several other psychiatric disorders, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, somatoform pain disorder, alcohol and opioid misuse, obsessivecompulsive disorder, and mild cognitive impairment in the elderly. Anxiety as a symptom of stress has consistently been found to respond to yoga,” the paper notes.

“We have breathing exercises and progressive muscular relaxation programmes. Though benefits of yoga are now accepted, hospitals prefer to outsource it rather than create infrastructure and space for it in the hospital. This maybe as part of their economic thinking,” said Dr CJ John, psychiatrist, Medical Trust hospital.

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