Rehab in Chronic Mental Illness

At least 200,000 people in the country suffer from serious chronic psychological ailments, said Hossein Nahvinejad, deputy of rehabilitation at the State Welfare Organization (SWO), on Saturday. In addition to psychological disorders, people with such illnesses are functionally impaired for different spans of time depending on the severity of the problems, he said on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of the first educational center for chronic psychologically ill patients. “Effective rehabilitation services can shorten the time span of ailments,” IRNA quoted him as saying. “Currently, only 10,000 mentally and psychologically ill people are under coverage of SWO and receive rehabilitation services.” Some chronic patients need only two years of constant rehab and caring services after which they can return to normal life; but high treatment costs impose a heavy financial burden on families, he added.