'Mental health is physical health': Booster shots for people with mood disorders
UNMC doctor "very pleased" with the decision to include depression and schizophrenia as conditions that qualify for a COVID-19 booster shot.
UNMC doctor "very pleased" with the decision to include depression and schizophrenia as conditions that qualify for a COVID-19 booster shot.
UNMC doctor "very pleased" with the decision to include depression and schizophrenia as conditions that qualify for a COVID-19 booster shot.
Just like age, diabetes or heart conditions, depression and schizophrenia now qualify you for a booster shot.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added mood disorders to the list of conditions that qualify you for a COVID-19 booster shot, Dr. Riley Machal with UNMC was “very pleased.”
"I certainly hope that this is a dawn of including mental health when we talk about physical health more broadly," said Machal, a clinical instructor of psychiatry.
Six months after their first round of vaccines, people with schizophrenia or depression disorders can get a booster.
"Schizophrenia and mood disorders increase peoples' risk of dying from COVID-19," Machal said.
According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders are 2.7 times more likely to die of COVID-19.
"That's why someone should go out and get that booster shot, because your risk is higher," Machal said.
Doctors don’t know exactly why that risk is higher. What they do know is that people with mood disorders are at higher risk for other health issues, which could in turn make severe COVID-19 more likely.
"Just like physical health, [mental health] is impacted both by biology and by psycho-social factors," Machal said. People with schizophrenia are more likely to experience homelessness or be of lower socioeconomic status, which can also elevate the risk of COVID-19.
KETV also asked whether any medications taken for mental health could weaken immune systems. Those do exist, but they aren't used frequently to treat mood disorders.
Machal says some medications that treat depression actually have protective benefits against COVID-19.
Lauren Heisterkamp knows firsthand how physical and mental health are linked.
She says she was diagnosed with depression in high school. When she got COVID-19 this year, she says her mental health deteriorated.
"Having anxiety and depression, it made all that kind of spiral out of control with COVID," Heisterkamp said.
Now Heisterkamp says she has "long-haul" COVID-19 symptoms, so she's interested in getting that booster shot.
Machal hopes more shots in arms can end the pandemic and start a new era of mental health inclusion.
"Mental health is physical health and physical health is mental health," Machal said.