Eating Disorders Case Study

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Many studies have been done about the causes and treatments of eating disorders but none quite like the one evaluated in the article Effective Treatment of Eating Disorders: Results at Multiple Sites. This study is different in several different ways and one is that it takes place throughout 4 different countries with a total of 6 clinics and the time span spreads from 1993-2011 and it tracks 1,428 patients. Another main factor of this study is the fact that they don’t focus on treating the patients’ psychological symptoms but the physical symptoms of the eating disorder. The experimenters called in the Mandometer treatment and this involved a scale that was linked to a computer, which rested underneath the patient’s dinner plate. The purpose of this was to receive mealtime feedback and compare their rate of eating to that of a normal person. Other parts of the treatment involved providing warmth to the patients through warm rooms, blankets, and jackets to avoid caloric use for thermoregulation; restricting physical activity; encouraging normal social interactions; and decreasing psychoactive drug use. At the beginning, there was an initial meeting with each patient that consisted of explanation of treatment; interview about eating behaviors, substance use, physical and social activity; and different inventorial evaluations to assist the severity of their individual eating disorder. Factors like BMI and how severe patients were was taken into consideration, as well as age and gender. The patients went through this treatment for about 12.5 months on average. Then upon remission, the patients were required to follow-up for intervals of 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 60 months and these appointments assessed the patients j... ... middle of paper ... ...ed before? Also, the article states that patients with “eating disorders not otherwise specified” had a 75% relapse rate and I’m curious to know why that is. Overall, I understood this article extremely well. In conclusion, I believe that this study is very important to the medical and mental health fields because it shows that the standard treatment used currently isn’t the most effective way of treating such disorders. Society and medical professionals should know and no longer assume if someone has an eating disorder it doesn’t mean it was caused by a psychiatric disorder. According to the findings of this study, the treatment should be changed to dealing with the physical signs of an eating disorder. It has high remission rate and a 0% mortality rate, which proves that it is very effective and more studies could be carried out to further prove this hypotheses.

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