Overall results indicated that greater participation in AA during the first three months of the study period was independently associated with more successful recovery over the following year. Of the behavioral changes associated with AA attendance, changes in social networks - more contacts with people who supported abstinence and fewer with those would encourage drinking - and greater confidence in the ability to maintain sobriety in social situations were most strongly connected with recovery success. Reduced depression and increased spirituality or religious practices also had a significant independent role in the recovery of participants whose had received inpatient treatment and probably had been more seriously dependent on alcohol.
For people with a condition that some scientists call misophonia, mealtime can be torture. The sounds of other people eating — chewing, chomping, slurping, gurgling — can send them into an instantaneous, blood-boiling rage.
via nytimes.com
Mental illness is a real issue. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken a harder look at the issue and have uncovered some alarming realities. About half of Americans will experience some form of mental health problem at some point in their life, and more must be done to help them.Nearly 8.4 million Americans had suicidal thoughts in the past year and 2.2 million made plans to kill themselves. One million persons attempted suicide.
Reversing a trial court decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled August 26 that Blue Shield of California must cover treatment for all “medically necessary treatments” relating to mental disabilities on par with physical disabilities under the state’s Mental Health Parity Act.
Published in the September issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, investigators from the University of Queensland have discovered compared to the general population, that individuals with severe mental illnesses are over three times more likely to lose their teeth due to poor oral health.
Medicaid support for dental care is terrible, almost criminal.
A 24-year-old Cincinnati father died from a tooth infection this week because he couldn't afford his medication, offering a sobering reminder of the importance of oral health and the number of people without access to dental or health care.
According to NBC affiliate WLWT, Kyle Willis' wisdom tooth started hurting two weeks ago. When dentists told him it needed to be pulled, he decided to forgo the procedure, because he was unemployed and had no health insurance.
When his face started swelling and his head began to ache, Willis went to the emergency room, where he received prescriptions for antibiotics and pain medications. Willis couldn't afford both, so he chose the pain medications.
The tooth infection spread, causing his brain to swell. He died Tuesday.
via abcnews.go.com
October 28-29 2011
Los Angeles, California
A conference for clinicians, researchers, consumers, parents, and families
Conference Topics Include:
♦ Safe, humane, life-enhancing methods of treating adults, children, families and couples in psychological distress without reliance on psychotropic drugs.
♦ What parents and families can do to help children without reliance on psychotropic drugs.
♦ Restoring psychotherapy as a first-line intervention in behavioral health.
♦ 50 years after “The Myth of Mental Illness”: Reflections on modern psychiatry.
♦ Neuroscience and psychology: synergy and implications for ethical treatment.
♦ Consumer-centered interventions that help people move towards full recovery.
♦ The impact of the pharmaceutical industry on mental health practice.
♦ Withdrawing from psychotropic drugs: Clinical indications, safety and supervision concerns.
Finnish Open Dialogue: High recovery rates leave many psychiatric beds empty
Open Dialogue Resources on the Web
Soteria and Other Alternatives to Acute Psychiatric Hospitalization - A Personal and Professional Review. [Includes link to a Madness Radio interview with Voyce Hendrix Inside Soteria House, and a link to the Soteria House website.
Practice Guidelines: Core Elements in Responding to Mental Health Crises
via power2u.org
Brain imaging has shown that people with Fibromyalgia demonstrate very different brains to their counterparts in age and sex who do not have the condition. The systems responsible for experiencing pain in the brain are active and dysfunctional without any signals being sent to them. What this shows is that the pain is real, but its origin is not located in the limb or area that the damaged tissue is. This is important as now treatment can be focused on the right place.
A new study suggests that low levels of the highly unsaturated omega-3 essential fatty acids, in particular DHA, may be associated with increased risk of suicide. Researchers at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) and the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) drew this finding following analysis of a large random sampling of suicide deaths among U.S. military personnel on active-duty between 2002 and 2008. The results of this retrospective study appear in the August 23 online version of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
“We were surprised to find just how low the levels of omega-3 fatty acids were in the entire sample,” said Army Col. (Dr.) Michael D. Lewis, lead author on the study and assistant professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics at the USU. “There still was a significant suicide risk when we stratified the population. When we compared the 1,400 samples with the lowest levels of DHA to the remaining 200, there was a 62 percent increased risk that the samples were from a documented suicide. We need to continue to evaluate these results with a well-designed interventional study, but this represents a potential simple nutritional intervention that warrants further investigation.”
via bmedreport.com