We’ve come a long way since the straitjacket

HAVE you been watching the latest series of Hospital, the BBC fly-on-thewall documentary? I confess I’ve found it totally gripping.

This week we saw the extraordinary case of Val, a 55-year-old patient who had her mouth and lower jaw destroyed by cancer, leaving her unable to eat, drink or talk. I heard her story and assumed it was hopeless.

But then we were introduced to maxillo- facial surgeon Mr Dilip Srinivasan, who — using pioneering technology — had worked out a way to re-grow Val’s jaw. A complex frame was constructed around her face, attached to the underlying bones, and the ends of her remaining jaw were gently encouraged to grow.

It was utterly astonishing and made me think about the mind-boggling advances medicine has made.

Of course, operations like Val’s are gripping because we can literally see the impact of modern medicine.

But there are also advances you can’t see, but that are just as vital — as in mental health. Until the development of antipsychotics in the Fifties and Sixties, severe symptoms such as psychosis — triggered by a range of conditions from schizophrenia to Parkinson’s disease — were untreatable. The best that we could offer was a padded room and a straitjacket.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), now the gold standard along with antidepressants for treating anxiety and depression, wasn’t developed until the Sixties. And from autism to Alzheimer’s, we understand more and more, and are developing new ways of helping.

There’s still much we don’t understand about the brain and mental illness — but it’s worth reminding ourselves of the huge strides we have made.