Clipmarks | dmegivern's 'mental.illness' clips

Suicide Risk High for New Mothers with History of Mental Illness

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:53:53 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Mental illness may up risk of postpartum suicide

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - New mothers with a history of depression or other psychiatric disorders appear more likely than other women to attempt suicide soon after giving birth, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among nearly 1,800 women who recently gave birth, those with a history of a psychiatric disorder were 27 times more likely to attempt suicide in the year after having their baby.

Similarly, women with a history of substance abuse had a six-fold increase in their risk of attempted suicide.

Overall, Comtois and her colleagues found, the risk of postpartum suicide was markedly higher among women who'd been hospitalized with a psychiatric disorder, substance abuse problem or both 5 years before giving birth.

Tags: mental illness, pregnancy, motherhood, suicide

Deplorable Conditions in Adult Homes for Mentally Ill

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:54:17 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.recordonline.com

Deplorable conditions plague worst-run adult homes

Karen Preston was a 54-year-old schizophrenic who froze to death last winter after wandering away, unnoticed, from the Roscoe Manor Adult Home.Times Herald-Record/MICHELE HASKELL

Karen Preston was 54 years old and suffered from severe schizophrenia. She had lived in Roscoe Manor because she needed help with daily activities and self-care that an adult home is supposed to provide.

Inspections at 22 licensed adult homes in Ulster, Sullivan and Orange counties from 2001-07 turned up 846 violations deemed to directly affect the safety or well-being of residents - with two-thirds of those citations recorded at the seven adult homes operated in Sullivan County.

State documents paint a disturbing picture of homes where residents are left to sit in soiled clothing, are subjected to physically or verbally abusive staffers and repeated instances of mismanaged medications.

Tags: mental illness, services, care

Suicidal Thoughts Common Among College Students

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:57:09 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com

Suicidal thoughts common among college students

Many college students become so distressed at some point they think briefly about killing themselves, according to a new study.

In a Web-based poll of more than 26,000 students at 70 colleges and universities, more than half said they had at least one episode of suicidal thinking at some point in their lives. Two-thirds of those considered suicide on more than one occasion in a 12-month period.

the fact that so many young people had thought about suicide and yet had not told anyone or sought help means the traditional model of helping students in crisis isn't quite working

Tags: college, students, suicide, mental illness

Mental Illness goes Untreated in Asian Americans

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:02:42 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

East Mind, West Mind

Mental health problems among Asian-Americans are often stigmatized and untreated. But doctors are finding ways to help.

And some of the national data point to a need for increased vigilance and treatment: Asian-American females, for instance, have the highest suicide rates among American females in the 15-24 age group, and Asian-American women who are 65 or older are 10 times more likely to commit suicide than are their white counterparts, according to numbers compiled by the Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS). Forty percent of Southeast Asian refugees suffer from depression, and anxiety plagues significant parts of that population as well, according to the ACRS statistics. And because of language and insurance barriers, many Asian-Americans aren't particularly likely to seek professional help.

Tags: mental illness

Can Depression Change Your DNA?

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:42:18 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Can Depression Change Your DNA?

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

New research points to significant modifications of an important gene that suggests depression may play a role in changing the very makeup of the brain.

Researchers at the Robarts Research Institute at The University of Western Ontario compared the brains of people who committed suicide with those who died suddenly of natural causes, such as a heart attack. They found that the genome in suicidal, depressed people was chemically modified by a process that is normally involved in regulating the essential characteristics of all cells in the body.

This is apparently the first study to show that proteins that modify DNA directly are more highly expressed in the brains of people who commit suicide. These proteins are involved in chemically modifying DNA in a process called epigenomic regulation.

The rate of methylation in the suicide brains was found to be much greater than that of the control group.

Tags: mental illness, genetics, epigenetics, depression

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

The Whole History of Dmegivern's Clipmarks Comments

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:02:50 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: thewisdomgoldenmean.blogspot.com

All my Clipmarks Comments

what I am trying to stress is that even if I eventually made it to the indebted middle class, I am not okay from the journey. I am traumatized. Poverty harmed me deeply. It broke up my family. It put me into foster care, and led to dozens of stressful moves. It provided me with a first-hand seat to the ridicule of the poor; I carry in diaries... in memories... a lifelong record of anti-poor and anti-welfare comments hurled at me.

"I disagree. I grew up in the household of mentally ill people who went untreated. It led to us going to foster care, long-term poverty, neglect, and sometimes mistreatment. I take my meds religiously because I never want to endanger my family in the same way. They may not work for everyone, but they have been wonderful for me. My brother who committed suicide in 1996 at the age of 23 never wanted to take meds either. I think people are too cavalier about dismissing their importance for real mental illness."

Tags: comments, poverty, mental illness

Church Member on the UU Reaction to Shooter

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:29:44 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: It's unfortunate his mental illness had such concepts to grasp onto.

Clip Source: bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com

BN-Politics Extends Its Condolences to Elrod and to The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church

by Damozel | The Moderate Voice's Elrod, a member of the church, has a beautiful post about how they are coping with this tragedy (discussed here in The Guardian). Elrod writes:

In an iconic UU moment, the President told us that a reporter had asked him if he thought the shooter was going to Hell. Everybody started chuckling in the crowd and the President said, “I don’t know what will happen after he dies, but I do know that he has been living in his own Hell for years.” And that was the true compassion of the Unitarian Universalist Church - to show sympathy even for those who would harm us. To love our enemies. It was a powerful example for those of us who may not accept the divinity of Jesus that, at the very least, he was a powerful teacher. This moment was not just Unitarianism at its best. It was Christianity at its best. (More)

Tags: mental illness, hatred, like cho

Risk Factors that Predict First Psychosis

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:38:58 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.apa.org

Predicting the first psychotic break

A combination of risk factors allows researchers to predict with up to 80 percent accuracy who is going to experience a psychotic break, the first onset of which can lead to a lifetime of illness, a new study concludes.

The finding may enable researchers to help those who are most at risk for schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders to start treatment early.

So far, researchers have identified several risk factors, including family history of schizophrenia, a deterioration in social functioning including disturbed thoughts, dropping out of activities and a history of drug abuse.

The results from the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study—a consortium of eight clinical research sites in the United States and Canada—were reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry (Vol. 65, No. 1).

Tags: mental illness, prodrome, psychotic

10 Common Myths about Mental Illness

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:26:24 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: 8. Children can’t have serious mental disorders.

9. Doctor/patient confidentiality is absolute and always protected.

10. Mental illness is no longer stigmatized in society.

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Top 10 Myths of Mental Illness

by John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
June 13, 2008

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

1. Mental illness is just like a medical disease.

Many mental health experts believe in the “bio-psycho-social” model of mental disorders. That is, there are multiple, connected components of most people’s mental illness that include three distinct, yet connected, spheres: (1) the biological and our genetics; (2) the psychological and our personalities; and (3) the social and our environment. All three seem to play an important role in most people’s development of a mental disorder.

2. Medications are the only treatment you need to treat a mental illness.

3. If a medication or psychotherapy doesn’t work, that means your situation is hopeless.

4. Therapists don’t care about you – they only pretend to care because you pay them.

5. If it isn’t serious, it can’t hurt you.

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

6. Psychology and psychiatry aren’t “real sciences.” They’re supported only by fuzzy research and contradictory findings.

7. Mental illness is a myth,

Psychiatric Emergency Rooms are Appalling

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:54:17 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: My dissertation research uncovered dozens of stories of abusive and incompetent psychiatric emergency rooms. I hope at least these woman's death will draw attention to an invisible and longstanding American problem.

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

Kings County Hospital Lets Woman with Mental Illness Die

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

The below hospital surveillance video shows a dying woman while people around her, including a hospital security guard, did nothing to help. Apparently hospitals aren’t good places for people with mental illness to be (click here to read the full entry and view the video):

After a full hour, another patient alerted hospital staff of the woman dead on the floor. But it gets better:

Why their psych ward is even allowed to remain open is beyond me. And while 6 staffers have been fired, including 2 security guards who saw the woman and did nothing, it still leaves a bitter taste in anyone’s mouth who watches this tape. The loss of a job just doesn’t seem sufficient punishment for the death of a person with mental illness — in a hospital.

Read the full story: Hospital video shows no one helped dying woman

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

Costs of Mental Illness More than Personal

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:44:46 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Costs to society from serious mental illness. Mental illness was the cause of poverty for our family so it was a high price personally, but there are societal costs as well.

Clip Source: www.time.com

Tallying Mental Illness' Costs

Serious mental illnesses (SMIs), which afflict about 6% of American adults, cost society $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year, according to findings published in this month's American Journal of Psychiatry. Surveying data from nearly 5,000 participants, researchers determined that people suffering from a SMI — defined as a range of mood and anxiety disorders, including suicidal tendencies, that significantly impaired a person's ability to function for at least 30 days over the past year — earned at least 40% less than people in good mental health.

Kessler and his colleagues determined that a person suffering from SMI had earned $23,000 on average in the previous year. Those respondents without SMI averaged nearly $40,000. The researchers attributed 75% of that difference to the person's mental illness. The other 25% was attributed to a greater likelihood that a mentally ill person would not have worked at all, thus earning nothing

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.

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.