Mental Health

Siobhain Broughton tells us of her experience with anorexia.

This is a crucial year for development, with the UK in a unique position to demonstrate international leadership in the fight against extreme poverty.

In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, we’ve had an overdue national conversation about mental illness. But will the solutions be more dangerous than the problem?

It’s not quite Iron Man, not yet anyway. Advancements in medicine for hurt military veterans bodes well for all of us in the future. Alison Morrow of ABC recently reported about an exoskeleton designed to help paraplegics walk again.

“People tend to have a cognitive bias toward their failures, and toward negativity,” says Matthew Della Porta, a positive psychologist and organizational consultant. Our brains are more likely to seek out negative information and store it more quickly to memory. But you can train yourself to seek out new patterns.

An interview with Mark Francis-Mullen, who became a certified yoga teacher and taught yoga at the Denver Veterans Administration Regional Medical Center while homeless. He taught at the VA’s PTSD and psychiatric wards for 16 months, and also taught his friends without shelter.

Looking at the issue of depression through the work of Foucault.

Treating major depression safely and affordably is a challenge. Now, Brazilian researchers have found that two techniques often used individually produce better results when used together.

Symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) might appear in an infant as young as 6 months, a Yale University School of Medicine study shows. Already at this early stage, children who would eventually be diagnosed with autism are already paying less attention to people and their activities than typically developing babies, according to the research spearheaded by Katarzyna Chawarska, of the Yale Child Study Center.

Autism is a developmental disorder of the mind, but it has a profound impact on the body as well. Children with autism can have trouble with motor function, poor coordination, myoclonal jerks, abnormal gait and posture, and sometimes difficulty sitting, lying, crawling, or walking. Physical activity is important for all children, regardless of their health, but it’s especially important for autistic kids. They have higher rates of obesity than other children, for one thing, and that puts them at risk for other health conditions, from diabetes to depression. And those illnesses will only further aggravate the underlying symptoms of the autism.

On Feb. 5, 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered a special message to Congress about the state of mental health in America. Focusing on accurate and prompt diagnoses, adequate treatment, education and recovery, Kennedy’s letter helped lead to a significant change in the way Americans approach mental health care.

From time to time, all of us can feel upset, lonely, stressed or down – especially if things have not gone as planned or a person has experienced a difficult event like a bereavement or loss of someone close to them. Having these feelings is quite normal and usually over time, they pass and people get on with their lives.

Franken’s bill, put forth last week, would call for a $200 million, comprehensive competitive grant program.

Under federal law, individuals who have been convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence offense or who are subject to a domestic violence restraining order can’t legally buy or possess firearms. But an estimated 30 to 40 percent of guns are purchased without a background check, making thorough enforcement of the law all but impossible.
“Gun sellers have no way of knowing if someone is a domestic abuser unless there is a background check,” says Jonathan Lowy, director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s Legal Action Project. “This is a real problem.”

Bipolar disorder is one of the hardest illnesses to diagnose because it is a cyclical disease that can take many forms, says Dr. Mimi Israel, chair of the department of psychiatry at McGill University and psychiatrist -in-chief of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. “Sometimes, people can have recurrent lows for many years starting in adolescence and the highs come only 15 or 20 years down the road.”