Nurture vs. Nature… Nurture just scored.

According to some UCLA researchers, early family experiences can reverse the outcome for people genetically inclined towards depression. A supportive family significantly reduced an individual’s likelyhood of developing depression.

From a medicalnewstoday.com article:

Among the study’s implications is that the short form of the 5-HTTLPR is “highly responsive to environmental influence” and, rather than predicting risk for depression, its effects vary substantially, depending on how supportive the external environment is…

Will Meek from the World of Psychology blog has a great post on it here.

I’m back…

..at least for now. Various personal problems are to blame for my extended hiatus from this blog. I apologize to all readers.

May 3, 2006: National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day

From About.com's Panic Disorder section:

National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day is Wednesday, May 3, 2006. At numerous locations throughout the United States and Canada, you may receive a free and anonymous screening for anxiety and depressive disorders. After the screening, you may talk privately to a qualified mental health professional, and you will receive a referral for further examination and treatment, if necessary.

To find a screening location near you, call 1-888-442-2022 or visit Freedom from Fear's Referral Network online. The telephone call is toll-free.

About.com has an extensive article on who should attend and what to expect.

UK Nurses’ Organization Supports Supervised Self-Injury

For some background on this issue read my March 22, 2006 post: Hospital Permits Self-Injury

In a debate at the Royal College of Nursing's Bournemouth Conference the majority of nurses supported allowing some type of "safe" self-harm for patients.

Read the BBC News article

 

My concern is that health professionals are supporting this for the wrong reasons. Getting self-injurers to use sterilized tools and properly care for their wounds will reduce emergency room visits. And hospitalized patients that are allowed to self-harm during their stay will probably be calmer leading to shorter hospital stays and less conflicts between patients and staff. "Safe" self-harm sounds like a great idea for the country's health-care budget. But I'm not sure that it's what's best for the patient.

Wednesday Quote of the Week: Joel Sax from “Pax Nortona”

Sunday, April 23, 2006:

Principles that I strive to follow: Listen before you decide to speak. Affirm the feelings, no matter how horrendous the actions might be. When someone is in depression, encourage. When someone is in mania, just shut up and listen. It is better to say “I feel your pain and I want you to know that you are not alone. I’m here to listen” than to say “This is how I get rid of that” which often amounts to “How can you be so stupid as to get yourself in that position?” The aim is to help the person stabilize, not to give them a guilt trip for becoming unbalanced. And remember that your words do affect others.

 

Read the rest of Joel's post: "Too Full of Feedback" for more on his recent experience in a support group and recommendations on how to be supportive.

A Talking Prescription Bottle

A company called MedivoxRx is selling a pill bottle dubbed "Rex" that allows consumers, doctors, or pharmacists to verbally record pertinent medication information that can be played back by pushing a button on the pill bottle.

A starter kit is $55 and contains three bottles and a recording station with microphone. According to the company website the product is targeted for people who are elderly, visually and cognitively impaired, illiterate, or speak a different language.

I take six medications and all but one are round tablets in varying shades of off-white. I'm a little paranoid about taking the wrong meds at the wrong time so I've never screwed it up yet. But I have stumbled out of bed in the morning, bleary-eyed and uncaffeinated, and grabbed a handful of pills, put them in my mouth and then spit them out to double-check that I got the right ones. Ick. An audio identification is a great idea for distinguishing between all those orange bottles with itty-bitty print.

[via Gizmodo]

previous post: "Pill-taking Cup"

Financial Ties Between the Writers of the DSM-IV and Drug Companies

A recent study new report published Thursday in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics found that 56 percent (95 out of 170) of the experts who worked on the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual published in 1994 and known as the DSM-IV had at least one monetary relationship with a drug maker between 1989 and 2004.

The DSM is known as "the bible of mental health" and is used by an estimated 400,000 mental health workers to diagnose conditions. It is also used by health insurers to determine coverage and is crucial to pharmaceutical firms: the FDA will not approve a drug to treat a psychological condition not found in the DSM.

The study found that 100 percent of the experts that worked on the DSM's panels overseeing mood disorders and schizophrenia/psychotic disorders had financial involvement with the pharmaceutical companies.

Critics suggest that the DSM is becoming to expansive and including disorders such as social anxiety that only create new markets for drug companies. The first edition of the DSM, published in 1952 contained 107 disorders. The DSM-IV has more than tripled that number, containing 365 disorders.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

Dr. Darrel Regier, director of research at the American Psychiatric Association, said disclosure of potential conflicts of interest "wasn't the standard in the field" at the time the latest edition came out. "For the next revision," due in 2011, "we will have full disclosure," he said.

Study Finds a Link of Drug Makers to Psychiatrists (New York Times)

Top Mental Health Guide Questioned (Chicago Tribune)

Drugs Instead of Alcohol

The medications used to treat alcoholism have come a long way since Antabuse. A Wired.com article details some of the medication options now available to treat alcoholics.

An interesting development in some of these new drugs, like Vivitrol, a monthly injection approved by the FDA less than two weeks ago, is that the focus seems to have shifted from the goal of total sobriety to merely lessening the alcohol amount consumed by addicts.

Other drugs that were seen as having potential for reducing alcohol intake are brand names familiar to the mentally ill community: Topomax and Abilify.

Maybe we’ll see a rebranding of these psychiatric drugs similar to the Wellibutrin/Zyban phenomenon a few years ago.

Read the Wired article here.

Blog Problems

I had about 4 fabulous ideas for post but WordPress is flaking out on me. All the buttons to post pictures or create a link are gone. And I refuse to manually type the HTML required for those actions!

Wednesday Quote of the Week: Cat from “Living With Multiple Personalities”

Last week I kind of forgot Wednesday. But the quote of the week is back!

Tuesday, April 18, 2006:

The wonderful HopeLine.com that PostSecret.com advertises after viewing so many deep dark secrets that are sent to them over the years is suffering some issues right now. They are asking for donations to the cause and need to raise $1,000 in 7 days.

Suicide hotlines are crucial. Please donate to Hopeline if you have the resources.

Read the rest of Cat's post here.