26
Feb
2016
Written by Dominic Howell / BBC
Patients wear a headset that projects a life-sized image, firstly of an adult and then of a child. The new research tested the technology for the first time on patients with a mental health problem. The project is part of a continuing study at University College London. The university, which is working in collaboration with ICREA-University of Barcelona, has suspected for several years that virtual therapy could help with mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar disorder, suicidal thoughts, and more.
25
Feb
2016
Written by Bonney Bowman /
Alaska National Guardsmen gathered Monday for a workout called 22 WOD to End Veteran Suicide. The WOD, or Workout Of the Day, is a national CrossFit event geared toward raising awareness about suicide prevention. Despite increasing mental health services, the number of veteran suicides in Alaska may be growing. Eight vets took their lives during fiscal year 2014, versus five the fiscal year before. Nationally, an average of 22 vets commit suicide each day. It’s a staggering number the military is working to combat through events like 22 WOD, which recognize those lives lost. At the gym on Camp Carroll, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, service members took part in a work out so tough, SSgt. Oliver Meza said it’s almost like going into combat. “High stress, adrenaline, sweat — you’re giving everything you got so it’s almost replicating that environment,” he said. Exercise can help treat such issues as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and more.
24
Feb
2016
Written by Sharon P. Schultz / Capital Gazette
Ryan Lively first became interested in the human brain when she was a high school junior studying anatomy at Annapolis Area Christian School’s Upper School Campus in Severn. Now a senior, it was a “no-brainer” that Lively would select the human brain as the subject of her Senior Practicum, a year-long project that is a requirement for graduation from AACS. What made Lively’s project unique was the way she incorporated five dogs from Pets-On-Wheels into the brain study. This is a form of animal therapy, which is a mental health program used to help people with such issues as mental illness, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and more.
22
Feb
2016
Written by Joanne Silberner / NPR
0.4 percent. That’s the proportion of global development assistance that goes to mental illness prevention, care and treatment, according to Daniel Vigo. It’s $1.5 billion of the $372 billion total health assistance spending around the world over the last 15 years. Vigo, a psychologist and psychiatrist at Harvard, believes that more money is needed. And he also believes that one reason the percentage is so low is that the world doesn’t do a good job of assessing the number of people who suffer from mental illness and the disability and the premature death that result. Those lost years — years when a person can’t work, can’t take part in family life — and those earlier-than-expected deaths are what’s called the “global burden of mental illness.”
18
Feb
2016
Written by Kim Banks / Examiner
Clinical depression is normally described as a common clinical mental health illness that affects one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Depression has symptoms related to feelings such as intense sadness, anger, and guilt, hopelessness and constant pessimism. Behaviors symptoms include withdrawing socially, lack of energy, low motivation, sleep problems, poor concentration and changes in appetite causing either significant weight gain or lose. Symptoms in thoughts include poor self-esteem, recurrent thoughts of suicide and loss of interest in regular activities.
16
Feb
2016
Written by David Yi / Mashable
Kerby Jean-Raymond knows how to make a statement. It was the young New York designer who caught the attention of the fashion industry when his entire last season was dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement. This year it was dedicated to mental health.
14
Feb
2016
Written by Cesar Chelala / Japan Times
Chinese scientists have created monkeys with a version of autism that could eventually help in the cure for this complex spectrum of brain disorders that affects millions of children worldwide. Autism has been identified in approximately 1 in 68 children in the U.S., and its characteristics are only now becoming better known.
13
Feb
2016
Written by Amy Morin / Chicago Tribune
More than 1 billion people log onto Facebook every day. Facebook remains the world’s most popular social networking site, where users can post duck-face selfies, get into feuds over the presidential campaign and read the headlines from their favorite news outlet.
09
Feb
2016
Written by Sara Solovitch / The Washington Post
It was November 2012 when Dennis Hartman, a Seattle business executive, managed to pull himself out of bed, force himself to shower for the first time in days and board a plane that would carry him across the country to a clinical trial at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda.
06
Feb
2016
Written by Amanda Garrett / Beacon Journal
Dr. Richard Kogan’s fingers — sometimes fluttering, sometimes flogging the keys of a piano — spilled a cascading torrent of emotion across a lobby at Summa Akron City Hospital Friday as if it was Carnegie Hall.