Clipmarks | dmegivern's 'health' clips

The Problem of Hoarding

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:09:14 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Is Hoarding a Big Deal?

Hoarding can manifest itself in the excessive collection of household trash, newspapers, magazines, clothing, and even animals. In some instances, not only have reams of useless items been accumulated, but also an entire household may be brimming with items from floor to ceiling. All available living space, including every surface, countertops, chairs, sofas, bathtubs, sinks, coffee tables, desks, and beds, may become jam-packed with broken televisions, radios, boxes, containers, bottles, magazines, newspapers, bills, photos, expired coupons, food, and old clothes, leaving barely enough room to maneuver throughout the home.

The mental health community attributes hoarding behavior to a variety of both physical and psychological factors.

It may be considered a mechanism for coping; a symptom of depression, anxiety, or substance abuse; a result of cognitive impairment; an obsessive–compulsive disorder; or a number of other possible conditions.

Tags: hoarding, mental health, aging

Sexual Dysfunction Related to Mental Health

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:05:03 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Sexual Dysfunction Related to Life Experiences

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

A new study finds sexual dysfunction is not an inevitable part of aging, but it is strongly related to factors, such as mental and physical health, demographics and lifetime experiences.

The study is a companion to a 1999 study Laumann led that looked at sexual dysfunction among men and women, ages 18 to 59. That study found that physical health was a bigger predictor of sexual problems for men than it was for women. For that younger age group, having an STD did not increase the odds of experiencing sexual dysfunction.

Among men, mental health issues and relationship problems contributed to a lack of interest in sex and the inability to achieve orgasm, while being treated for urinary tract syndrome was associated with trouble maintaining and achieving an erection.

Among men, blacks were twice as likely to report a lack of interest in sex

Tags: mental health, sexuality

PTSD is a Risk Factor for Heart Disease

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:53:27 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

PTSD causes early death from heart disease: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) significantly raises the risk of premature death from heart disease, according to results of a long-term study of Vietnam veterans.

In the study, veterans who experienced PTSD were roughly twice as likely to die from heart disease during follow up as veterans without PTSD.

PTSD causes the body to release stress hormones, which leads to inflammation and damage to the arteries and cardiovascular system. Stress hormones also tend to reduce the amount of cortisol in the body, a hormone that fights inflammation.

Tags: health, mental health, risk, stress

American Medical Association Apologizes for Racism

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:18:59 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

(CNN) -- The American Medical Association, the nation's largest organization of physicians, apologized Thursday for its history of discriminatory policies toward African-American physicians, including those that effectively restricted membership to whites.

Dr. Nelson L. Adams said the AMA's practices had a "devastating" effect on African-Americans' health.

For a long portion of the organization's history, the AMA required that its members belong to a state or local medical society, groups that in some states did not allow African-Americans as members, Davis said.

Joyner said African-Americans disproportionately suffer from chronic diseases that include heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

"In accepting this apology for past wrongs, it is important we seize this opportunity to move forward to correct these injustices," she said

Tags: racism, health

The Costs of Trying to Save without Thinking

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:41:26 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Higher medical and hospitalization costs, lost wages, homelessness and even incarceration of mentally ill patients account for the potential increase in cost, Fleeter concluded. About 45,000 people on Medicaid could be directly affected, the study said.

Other studies concluded that three of four schizophrenics suffer a relapse when switching drugs, often resulting in hospitalization, homelessness or violence and incarceration.

Clip Source: www.columbusdispatch.com

Effort to cut Medicaid spending may actually boost costs

A Strickland administration initiative designed to reduce Medicaid spending on costly psychotropic drugs could actually cost the state money in the long run, a new study concludes.

The administration touted savings up to $47 million by requiring pre-authorization for a handful of specialized drugs used primarily to treat bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia and other serious mental-health conditions.

Even before the plan was implemented, however, the savings estimate was lowered to $20 million. And by the time state Budget Director Pari Sabety appeared before a legislative budget committee on Feb. 26, the savings estimate had been eliminated altogether.

A study

done by Howard Fleeter, a Columbus economics consultant and former Ohio State University professor, argues that the policy change might not save money, but could result in unintended added costs of $23.2 million to $38.7 million annually.

Tags: metnal health, policy, unintended consequences

Jr Miss Pageant Valued More than Proper Care

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:05:10 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: I almost never hear "pro-life" people balk at the horrific lives lived by the mentally ill in our country. If only we could put them back in the womb.

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Creative Funding Solutions for Mental Health Care

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Historically, mental-health funding has been a low political priority. In Wyatt v. Stickney, the country’s first major civil-rights battle about mental illness, attorneys sued Alabama and introduced horrific evidence that showed how patients in state asylums in the 1970s were being abused, neglected, and, in some cases, tortured. Yet, when a disgusted Alabama judge ordered the state legislature to overhaul its shameful system by pumping in millions of new tax dollars for improvements, legislators balked. They cried poor. There was no money, they insisted, until an enterprising attorney released state financial records that revealed Alabama was spending more each year to host the Alabama Junior Miss Pageant and swine shows at county fairs than it spent caring for people with mental illnesses.

Read the full article: Finding Funding

Tags: mentally ill, neglect, abuse

State Suicide Rates are Linked to MH Services

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:08:23 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.mentalhealthamerica.net

Lost productive time among U.S. workers due to depression is estimated to be in excess of $31 billion per year. Depression frequently co-occurs with a variety of medical illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, and chronic pain and is associated with poorer health status and prognosis. It is also the principal cause of the 30,000 suicides in the U.S. each year. In 2004, suicide was the 11^th leading cause of death in the United States, third among individuals 15-24.

Download the full report (PDF)

The four measures were: (1) the percentage of the adult population experiencing at least one major depressive episode in the past year, (2) the percentage of the adolescent population (ages 12 to 17) experiencing at least one major depressive episode in the past year, (3) the percentage of the adult population experiencing serious psychological distress, and (4) the average number of days in the past 30 days in which the population reported that their mental health was not good.

Tags: suicide, mental illness, depression, states

Trust Leads to Better Health

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:40:49 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Trust Leads to Better Health

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

“Social trust, sense of belonging and community participation were each significantly associated with health outcomes,” the researchers found.

Physical health — as reported by the study participants —“remained significantly associated with social trust” even among twins.

“The relationship between social capital and health is complex,” said Mark LaGory, chairman of the sociology department at University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“There are a lot of intervening variables.” In lower-income neighborhoods, he said, “social capital, instead of indicating a body of resources people can draw on, represents a body of obligations that others can draw from.”

One way of thinking about it: “People that are deeply connected with the local neighborhood are bearing not only their own poverty, but everyone else’s [poverty],” LaGory said.

Tags: trust, health

Where's the Private Sector?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:09:49 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Minnesota governor cuts services to poorest, most vulnerable. For some reason, no private sector businesses or associations have stepped up to pay for their care.

Clip Source: www.naswmn.org

Health Care Reform: The Good News and the Bad News

Governor Pawlenty proposed balancing the budget on the backs of the state’s poorest individuals by raiding the Health Care Access Fund and cutting health and human services. Leadership battled with the governor most of the session and finalized a budget deal in the last remaining hours. So what happened?

Well, good news first:

A Health Care Reform bill was passed that MPR says will provide more information about medical payments, reward doctors for treating chronic illness, and reduce overall state health care costs 10-15% by 2015. MinnesotaCare eligibility was expanded by 12,000 people and nursing homes will get a much-needed 2% increase in their cost of living funding.

And the bad news:

Approximately $170 million was cut from the health and human services budget for next year and $206 million in the following biennium.

“This bill takes most of the cuts from the most vulnerable people: the elderly, the disabled, the sick and the poor.”

Tags: privatization, medicaid, minnesota

Congressman Turns Down Health Insurance

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:58:15 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: He is working to see that all uninsured Americans get coverage before he will accept it.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

An Uninsured Doctor in the House

When Steve Kagen became a member of Congress, he declined health insurance coverage. Now he has a plan to provide it for everyone

One of the first things U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen (D–Wisc.) did when he took office last year was to nix his congressional health care coverage. The move stunned a human resources staffer, who, the lawmaker says, looked at him as though he were insane.

Kagen, 58, is now one of millions of Americans, including at least nine million children, without health insurance. "I have absolutely no health coverage at all," he told ScientificAmerican.com during a recent interview. "I have no health conditions and am pretty darn healthy." And if he gets sick? "I'd be just like the 47 [million] to 50 million American citizens who don't have coverage," he says, "and I'd have to negotiate with hospitals and doctors for the best-priced coverage."

Tags: healthcare, insurance

How Does Your State Rate?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:51:14 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Depression levels by state

Clip Source: www.nmha.org

The Ranking of the States

State Ranking on Suicide Rates

South Dakota was the healthiest state with respect to depression status.

Utah was the most depressed state.

The Five Factors Affecting Depression Status

Mental health resources -

Barriers to treatment -

Mental health treatment utilization -

Socioeconomic characteristics -

Mental health parity -

Factors That Influence State Mental Health Status and Suicide Rates

Attempts to Profit off Mentally Ill Fail in NC

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:21:43 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: I've said it before and I will say it again and again, you cannot make a profit off of people with serious mental illness.

Clip Source: www.charlotte.com

Director exits as critics hit N.C. mental health system's poor service, runaway costs

A recent overhaul of the system, which cares for 350,000 people, left seriously mentally ill people without community care. In the last two years, the state has spent too much on a basic mental health service provided by private companies; meanwhile, reviews determined that thousands getting the service didn't need it. And in the last year, investigators found problems at all four of the state's mental hospitals.

But in the early years of Moseley's tenure, the system of private providers failed to develop in communities. Meanwhile, local mental health offices complied with a mandate to stop treating patients. People seeking short-term care overwhelmed state hospitals.

When the community treatment network started to bloom in early 2006, private companies rushed to provide a basic but costly service called community support. Costs exploded while people who needed more intensive treatment could not find it.

Teens Views of Health Affected by Social Class

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:26:34 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Social class may affect teens' view of their health

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - When it comes to defining good health, low-income teenagers may put more stock in mental well-being than wealthier teens do, a new study suggests.

The study, of 1,157 U.S. children ages 12 to 15, was partially aimed at confirming a phenomenon seen in earlier research -- that teenagers' views of their own general health are often out of sync with their parents' views.

But the study also found that families' views differed according to income. Among higher-income families, children's and parents' health ratings depended on physical health factors -- such as how often the child had been sick in the past month, or the number of missed school days in the past year.

For low-income families, physical health mattered, but so did mental health. In general, teenagers who had seen a mental health professional in the past year gave better ratings to their overall health than other low-income teens did.

Socialized Medicine as the Bogey Man

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:18:14 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Anti social does not mean that you do not like to be around people. It means that you enjoy violating the rights of others. Health care should be a right, and I would prefer if it were pro-social medicine.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

U.S. split on "socialized medicine": poll

BOSTON (Reuters) - Most Democrats say "socialized medicine" would be better than the current U.S. health care system, while most Republicans say it would be worse, a poll by the Harvard School of Public Health showed on Thursday.

The survey did not provide a definition of that term and one in three voters said they did not understand it. But more than 70 percent said they understood it to mean "the government makes sure everyone has health insurance".

Nationwide, about 45 percent of respondents said they believed such a system would be better for the country, while 39 percent said it would be worse, according to the poll of 1,030 voters surveyed Feb 6-10.

About 70 percent of Republicans said socialized medicine would be worse than the current system, while the same percentage of Democrats said it would be better.

Military Stigma of Mental Illness Problematic

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:29:14 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Mental Health Stigma Continues in Military

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

A new research study finds the stigma accompanying mental health disorders persists in the military. In a study of over 8,400 Canadian troops, mental disorders ranging from depression to alcoholism were unreported because of a variety of barriers. “Our findings show more than half of the military members with a mental disorder do not use any of the mental health services available to them,” says lead author Deniz Fikretoglu, an expert in posttraumatic stress disorder, at McGill University.

“Foremost among barriers is a failure to acknowledge any need for services and mistrust of military administrative health and social services,” he said, adding that further impediments identified were the belief that a condition is temporary or the inability to identify a problem as a mental illness.