Recovery Michigan

Nearly three in 10 adults reported they slept an average of six hours or less a night, according to the National Health Interview Survey.

"Our data suggests a 30-minute nap can reverse the hormonal impact of a night of poor sleep," said one of the JCEM study's authors, Brice Faraut, PhD, of the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité in Paris, France. "This is the first study that found napping could restore biomarkers of neuroendocrine and immune health to normal levels."

Compared with the general population, chronic narcotic use was significantly higher for pediatric IBD patients with psychological impairment than those without. Older age, increased health-care utilization, fracture and psychological impairment were also strongly associated with chronic use of narcotics among children with IBD. Increased use of narcotics with greater health-care utilization indicates that narcotic use may be a marker for severe disease.

Narcotics may be prescribed to patients with IBD, which encompasses Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, for temporary pain relief, such as to treat an acute flare or alleviate pain after surgery. Long-term narcotic use among children with IBD is not recommended because of GI side effects, disease complications and potential for dependency.

Abuse toward older adults continues to be a major concern in terms of barriers for prevention and treatment. Some barriers are due to how members of this population from different racial-ethnic backgrounds perceive, experience, and try to solve problems related to their own mistreatment. Multicultural focus group discussions on older adult abuse case vignettes in the United States reveal the following attitudes of African Americans, English-speaking Latinos, Spanish-speaking Latinos, non-Latino Whites, and African American caregivers for older adults:

Achievements in 2014 include:

• Substance use credentialing: Credentialing standards are now streamlined across all state departments to improve the coordination of care in the state (Public Act 249 of 2014).

• Care coordination: Michigan Health Information Network now supports care coordination statewide in both physical and behavioral health settings (PA 129 of 2014)

Deaf and hard of hearing issues: The Department of Civil Rights will continue to lead the state on issues affecting people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

• “R-Word”: The offensive and hurtful phrase “mental retardation” has now been removed from state statutes. (Bill signing- March 28, 2014).

• Pure Michigan marketing: Recommendations were provided to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation on how to include families with disabilities in Pure Michigan marketing materials.

• Special education funding flexibility: Schools can now use at-risk funds for mental health purposes (PA 196 of 2014).

• Autism Council priorities: The Autism Council has committed to making public school educational mental health and developmental disability support services a priority.

• Employment directive: Snyder signed an executive directive encouraging the creation of policies that would make state government more welcoming for people with disabilities.

Increasingly, evidence is suggesting that inflammation may drive some depressive symptoms, such as low mood, loss of appetite and reduced ability to sleep.

What the new study set out to investigate was whether inflammation is a driver of clinical depressionindependent of other physical illness.

The PET scans showed significant inflammation in the brains of the people with depression, and the inflammation was most severe among the participants with the most severe depression. The brains of people who were experiencing clinical depression exhibited an inflammatory increase of 30%.

“I THOUGHT THIS WAS A JOKE,” recalled Staff Sgt. Perry Hopman, who served as a flight medic in Iraq. “I wanted no part of it because, number one, I’m a man, and I don’t like holding a dainty little paintbrush. Number two, I’m not an artist. And number three, I’m not in kindergarten. Well, I was ignorant, and I was wrong, because it’s great. I think this is what started me kind of opening up and talking about stuff and actually trying to get better.”

Hopman is one of many service members guided by art therapist Melissa Walker at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), which is part of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland. Images painted on their masks symbolize themes such as death, physical pain, and patriotism.

What about fragrances when they target our brains and brain functions, including moods and perceptions?

Despite the efforts of public figures like Demi Lovato and Jon Hamm as well as popular campaigns designed to raise awareness about its effects, mental illness is undeniably still stigmatized in America. Insulting depictions in pop culture, legal discrimination and widespread inadequate health care — just to name a few examples — make this reality clear.

Even when efforts are made to confront this stigma, people of color are rarely represented, obscuring the complex experiences they endure. 

"Stigma makes the experience of people of color with mental illnesses much more difficult because they are dealing with a multitude of other oppressions," Dior Vargas, a self-described "Latina feminist mental health activist" told Mic. "They are made to feel like an 'other' and so this illness would add to this definition of an other." 

Vargas is on a mission to change this. She recently launched the People of Color & Mental Illness Photo Project, a moving compilation of images meant to challenge people of color to "speak out and unburden themselves of the shame and secrecy" of living with a mental illness by "changing the way" people of color with mental illnesses are represented, according to her website. 

In the article "Integrating Intimate Partner Violence Assessment and Intervention into Healthcare in the United States: A Systems Approach", Elizabeth Miller, MD, PhD, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Brigid McCaw, MD, MPH, Kaiser Permanente, Betsy Humphreys, MLS, National Library of Medicine, and Connie Mitchell, MD, MPH, California Department of Public Health, describe a systems approach that combines health and advocacy services to support the identification and transition to care for women exposed to IPV. The approach benefits from the use of electronic health records and partnerships with various service and advocacy providers.

The article "Identifying and Intervening with Substance-Using Women Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence: Phenomenology, Comorbidities, and Integrated Approaches within Primary Care and Other Agency Settings" focuses on women suffering from substance-use and substance disorders who are exposed to IPV and HIV. Terri Weaver, PhD, Saint Louis University, Louisa Gilbert, PhD and Nabila El-Bassel, PhD, Columbia University School of Social Work, Heidi Resnick, PhD, Medical University of South Carolina, and Samia Noursi, PhD, National Institute on Drug Abuse, U.S. National Institutes of Health, discuss the mental health and physical illnesses that may often co-occur in these individuals, and the difficulties they present for screening and intervention efforts. They also offer recommendations to fill the gaps identified in the existing research.