Researchers estimate there are between 275,000 and 1 million women and men who are providing care or have provided care for military members or veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Caregivers include spouses, children and parents of military members and veterans.Despite the serious challenges faced by this group, there is no national strategy for supporting military caregivers, even as the nation prepares to end more than a decade of war fighting.
Patients diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have a significantly higher risk of developing insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, placing them at greater risk for heart disease and diabetes, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. Researchers say public health interventions are urgently needed to prevent PTSD-related metabolic disorder at its early, reversible stage.
A new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows that alcohol is now the third leading cause of the global burden of disease and injury, despite the fact most adults worldwide abstain from drinking.
The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 ("Parity Act") increased access to mental health and substance use services in hospitals, yet consumers continued to pay more out-of-pocket for substance use admissions than for other types of hospital admissions, finds a new Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) report.
Patients with more severe depression show at least as good clinical benefit from 'low-intensity' interventions, such as self help books and websites, as less severely ill patients, suggests a paper published on bmj.com today.
On the whole, the authors found that, compared to those without any disability, the odds of being a victim of violence in the past year were three-fold higher for those with mental illness-related disability, and two-fold higher for those with physical disability. The odds were similarly raised for physical and sexual violence, and for domestic and non-domestic violence. Their analysis also revealed that victims with disability were twice as likely to experience emotional difficulties following violence than non-disabled victims.
Trials of the device, which causes a mild tingling sensation, have shown it can cause a 50 per cent improvement in the symptoms of people suffering from depression.
It has also been found to reduce the occurrence of epileptic seizures in patients who did not respond to drug treatments.
The researchers who developed the device, known as an external trigeminal nerve stimulation patch, presented their results to a conference on medical innovation at the Royal Society of Medicine in London yesterday.
via telegraph.co.uk
Scopolamine is an anticholinergic drug with many uses. For example, it prevents nausea, vomiting, and motion sickness.However, scopolamine is re-emerging as an antidepressant, with recent studies showing that scopolamine can rapidly improve mood in depressed patients. In addition, in a new study published in Biological Psychiatry this month by Dr. Moriel Zelikowsky and colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, it may also be a possible treatment for anxiety disorders.
depression caused by heavy drinking has a different prognosis and is treated much differently from major depressive episodes that are not seen in the context of heavy drinking. Although the symptoms of independent and substance-induced depressions can be identical, if the sadness develops in the context of heavy drinking, the symptoms are likely to lift within several weeks to a month of abstinence and rarely require antidepressants to go away.
Adults with some form of mental illness have a smoking rate 70 percent higher than adults with no mental illness, according to a Vital Signs report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The report finds that 36 percent of adults with a mental illness are cigarette smokers, compared with only 21 percent of adults who do not have a mental illness.