International Conference on
Alzheimers, Dementia and Related Neurodegenerative Diseases

Eduardo Garcia-Toledano is currently working as a Vice President and General Counsel of Global Health, Madrid, Spain. He is heading up the group responsible for the foundation's external liaison with all stakeholders working to support the availability of treatments for childhood cancer and rare diseases on behalf of the company. He has worked on programs for the Spanish Government Ministry of Health, social services and equality. His career has been focused on patient care and case management for patients with chronic and rare diseases, working with laboratories and orphan drugs helping people who need help and are suffering from rare and chronic diseases.

The global burden of disease due to mental disorders continues to rise, especially in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). In addition to cause a large proportion of morbidity, mental disorders, especially Severe Mental Disorders (SMD) are linked with poorer health outcomes and increased mortality. SMD are defined as a group of conditions that include moderate to severe depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. People with SMD have two to three times higher average mortality compared to the general population, which translates to a 10-20-year reduction in life expectancy. The WHO Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan (2013-2020) outlines a vision where people living with mental disorders can exercise the full range of human rights and to access high quality, culturally-appropriate health and social care in a timely way to promote recovery. In service of this vision and as part of WHO’s mental health Gap Action Program (mhGAP), these guidelines on the management of physical health conditions in adults with severe mental disorders will provide up-to-date, evidence-based recommendations to support the scale-up of care for physical health conditions and their risk factors affecting people living with SMD globally. Existing WHO guidelines for the general population are relevant to the physical health conditions that increase the morbidity and mortality for people with SMD, for example, the Package of Essential Non-communicable (PEN) disease interventions for primary health care in low-resource.