Recovery Michigan

Fast facts about sleep

• 43% of Americans aged 13-64 years say they do not get enough sleep
• 60% have problems sleeping most nights
• Most Americans feel that 7.5 hours is an appropriate length of time to sleep.

Learn more about sleep

In this study, Soeter and Kindt recruited 45 volunteers with spider fear. The participants were randomized to receive a single dose of either propranolol, a beta blocker used to treat high blood pressure and heart conditions, or placebo following brief exposure to a tarantula.

Those who received propranolol displayed drastically reduced avoidance behavior and increased approach behavior, an effect that persisted for one year.

"Here we show for the first time that an amnesic drug given in conjunction with memory reactivation transformed avoidance behavior to approach behavior in people with a real-life spider fear. The new treatment is more like surgery than therapy," said Kindt.

"Currently patients with anxiety disorders and PTSD receive multiple sessions of cognitive behavioral treatment or daily drug intake with a gradual (and often temporary) decline of symptoms," added Kindt. "The proposed revolutionary intervention involves one single, brief intervention that leads to a sudden, substantial and lasting loss of fear."

“People are doing their very best with the tools available to them,” said Dr. Mary Margaret Gleason, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist at Tulane University School of Medicine. “There’s a sense of desperation with families of children who are suffering, and the tool that most providers have is the prescription pad.”

“There are not studies,” Dr. Gleason said, “and I’m not pushing for them.”

She’s also not alone. More than 18 million people are getting Adderall prescriptions — and not for ADHD as the drug was intended, but as a weight loss technique, study aid and all manner of uses. It’s gotten so common that pharmacies can’t even keep up with the demand. This is startling considering the mounting evidence that Adderall is basically meth. As far as how it acts in a person’s brain and body, Adderall isn’t just basically meth … it is meth.

It can be good to remind readers that, though most people feel merry during December, it’s also normal to get depressed during the holidays. What’s terrible and dangerous, though, is telling people—falsely—that suicides spike around this time.

According to the CDC, November and December are the months with the fewest suicides. The overwhelming majority of people who kill themselves are mentally ill. For people who otherwise feel fine year-round, feeling mildly down in December is simply not enough to prompt suicide. The stress we associate with the holiday season isn’t the kind of stress that leads to suicide, as Christine Moutier, a psychiatrist and the chief medical officer with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, told NPR. Instead, people are driven to end their lives because of factors like genetics, trauma, mental illness, and access to guns.

In the past, those being released from jail or prison did not qualify for Medicaid, but now they do. These are mostly men on low incomes.

However, many do not have access to programs that would help them enroll in Medicaid once they are released.

Research shows that access to health services on release leads to greater well-being and a lower risk of committing further crimes.

For former prisoners, the first days and weeks back in the community are crucial. A 2007 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that in the 2 weeks after release, the mortality rate among former prisoners was 13 times higher than in the general public, especially from a drug overdose.

Many of those being released have serious health conditions, mental illness or substance abuse problems, and often, when their medication runs out, they commit new crimes that put them back in jail.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD, led by Colleen L. Barry, PhD, investigated programs that help enroll prisoners in Medicaid upon release.

As of January 2015, there were 64 programs - half of them in California. Only 42 of these programs have kept data on the numbers enrolled, but those that have kept count had enrolled 112,000 people by January 2015, mostly men. The total number is probably far higher.

Barry explains that men with serious health conditions, from schizophrenia to heart disease, receive treatment while in prison, but leave with 1-2 weeks' supply of medication and no access to a doctor.

Now, in participating states, many newly released prisoners are qualifying for health insurance through Medicaid. A small number of innovative programs have been created to help former prisoners enroll in Medicaid and to connect them with health care services.

Under federal law, those serving time cannot receive Medicaid, so that, on being convicted, people lose their benefits but receive treatment from the corrections system. After, it can take months to re-enroll.

One strategy involves states and counties suspending rather than terminating benefits while serving time, so that Medicaid is automatically reinstated upon release.

Prescription opioid abuse has reached epidemic proportions, with more than half of patients being treated for chronic pain reportedly misusing their medication at some point.

However, new research led by University at Buffalo psychiatric nursing researcher Yu-Ping Chang found motivational interviewing, a form of behavioral counseling, is an effective tool at curbing the abuse.

Motivational interviewing (MI) is designed to promote a patient's desire to change problem behaviors by expressing empathy for their experiences, using non-confrontational dialogue, and developing discrepancies between actual and desired behavior.

Although MI was developed to treat alcohol abuse, researchers wondered if the intervention also could be effective in treating opioid misuse in older adults.

The researchers examined patients 50 years of age and older who experienced chronic pain and were rated at risk for opioid misuse based on screening tools. The participants underwent MI for one month, which consisted of an in-person meeting followed by weekly phone sessions with counselors, and later received a one month follow-up test.

Before and after the intervention, participants completed screening surveys for risk of opioid misuse, alcohol abuse, levels of motivation, self-efficacy, depression and anxiety, chronic pain intensity and treatment satisfaction.

In addition to reducing the risk for opioid misuse, participants reported an increase in confidence, self-efficacy and motivation to change behavior, and a decline in depression, anxiety and the intensity of chronic pain.

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Open Dialogue is currently being piloted in four NHS trusts. It could revolutionise mental-health care in the UK, according to its champions, who include Suzanne’s psychiatrist, Russell Razzaque. The North East London Foundation Trust, where he works, has just given the go-ahead for an Open Dialogue-based service for patients referred from anywhere in the country, starting next May. 

Open Dialogue is primarily for people who are suffering a mental-health crisis such as suicide or psychosis – 1.8 million of them in the UK last year. They badly need help: a damning report from the Care Quality Commission in June found that the current system is struggling to cope with mental-health crises, with 42 per cent of patients not getting the help they need. A campaign launched last month calls for an increase in funding for mental-health services and parity with physical health.