Psychiatry / Psychology
Depression detection tool to transform treatment of cancer
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25 January 2007: A tool to detect depression in cancer patients launched by the University of Liverpool will vastly improve patients’ ability to come to terms with their disease.
Depression affects 25% of patients with advanced cancer – the stage at which the disease has begun to spread from its original tumour. At this stage, depression is difficult to diagnose as symptoms can be confused with a patient displaying ‘appropriate sadness’ – feelings which commonly result from suffering a terminal illness.
Smart way of living for people with dementia
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A groundbreaking home that uses the latest smart technology to give people with dementia and other serious long-term health conditions greater independence will be showcased for the first time in Bristol tomorrow.
The technology, which has been developed by the Bath Institute of Medical Engineering (BIME) in the School for Health at the University of Bath, has been designed to help people readjust to living on their own after a stay in hospital, and aims to reduce the risk of users being readmitted to hospital or going into long term care.
Depression drugs weaken bones in elderly
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Older adults who take the most popular class of anti-depressant drugs worsen their risk of developing fragile bones, a study has shown.
Tests on a group of Canadians aged 50 or older found those taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors had 4 percent less bone mineral density in their hip bones.
Millions of people take the anti-depressants commonly called SSRIs that include Eli Lilly’s Prozac.
Cholesterol decline may signal early dementia
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A decline in total cholesterol levels may precede the diagnosis of dementia by at least 15 years, according to a study reported in the Archives of Neurology.
“Studies like this are extremely valuable because they can provide a ‘window’ on to processes going on early in dementia, allowing researchers to look back in time at people’s health and other characteristics and compare these between people who develop dementia and those who do not,” Dr. Robert Stewart from King’s College London, told Reuters Health.
Mortality risk higher for children of mentally ill
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A Danish population-based study suggests that the relative risk of death is statistically raised among children with one or two mentally ill parents, although the absolute risk is still low.
Principal investigator Roger T. Webb, research fellow at the University of Manchester Division of Psychiatry, UK, and colleagues analyzed the risk of death from any cause in children whose mother or father had been admitted for psychiatric treatment and compared them against mortality risks in the general population.
Schizophrenia drug helps anorexia patients
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The antipsychotic drug quetiapine may help ease symptoms in patients with anorexia nervosa, a small new study shows.
Nine of 19 anorexia patients in the study gained weight after 10 weeks on the drug, Dr. Pauline S. Powers and colleagues from the University of South Florida in Tampa report.
Internet exacerbates problems of anorexia and bulimia in teens
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The Internet is being blamed by researchers in the U.S. for exacerbating the problems of anorexia and bulimia in young people.
According to a new pilot study by researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, children as young as 10 are learning new weight loss or purging methods from web sites that promote eating disorders.
Patient’s Worldwide Bill of Rights for Eating Disorders Demands Proof of Results
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An international professional society has issued a patient’s bill of rights for the treatment of eating disorders, conditions that affect an estimated 30 million Americans, most of them young women. For 2 million, symptoms will progress to full-blown anorexia nervosa and approximately 10 percent will die from the disease. Treatment is often complex and typically involves not only the patient, but friends and family as well.
The Academy for Eating Disorders (AED), which created the bill of rights, warns that in recent years treatment programs have flourished which can make choosing among treatment options difficult for parents and patients. Dr. Cynthia Bulik, AED fellow, distinguished professor of eating disorders in the department of psychiatry and director of the Eating Disorders Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, said patients and their parents should know three things:
Touch, massage may aid dementia patients
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Gentle massage therapy shows some promise for easing dementia patients’ agitation and anxiety, though there have been too few well-conducted studies to recommend the treatment yet, according to researchers.
In a review of two clinical trials, Danish researchers found that hand massage helped calm dementia patients’ agitation levels, while gentle touch and “verbal encouragement” at mealtime improved their food intake.
The findings suggest that human touch could help allay the agitation, anxiety and other behavioral and emotional problems that come with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
Anabolic steroids and antisocial behaviour go together
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Swedish researchers have found that there could well be a link between the use of anabolic steroids and antisocial behaviour.
Anabolic steroids are drugs related to male sex hormones and can be taken through injections or orally; many athletes, bodybuilders and others, both male and female, use steroids without a prescription to build muscle bulk and strength in order to look better.
Steroids can cause serious side effects, including liver cancer, and kidney disease.
Anorexics attribute meaning to their symptoms
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For many patients with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, their self-starvation has real meaning and purpose in their lives. “Therefore, treatments of anorectic behavior which disregard the meaning that the patients attribute to the illness are likely to end in relapses,” lead investigator Dr. Ragnfrid H. Nordbo, of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, told Reuters Health.
Nordbo and colleagues conducted a qualitative study of the perceptions of 18 women with anorexia nervosa. The subjects, who were between 20 and 34 years old, underwent focused, in-depth interviews. The study findings are published in the November issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
“Most anorectic patients regard their illness as meaningful,” Nordbo said.
Teens who read poorly have higher suicide risk
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Teenagers who have significant problems reading appear to be much more likely than their peers to contemplate or attempt suicide, researchers reported Wednesday.
In a 3-year study of 188 high school students, researchers found that those with poor reading abilities were nearly four times more likely than average readers to think about or attempt suicide.
Twenty-five percent of teens with reading disabilities said they thought about killing themselves or made a suicide attempt, while these thoughts and behaviors were reported by 9 percent of students with average reading skills, the study authors report in the Journal of Learning Disabilities.
Music may ease symptoms of schizophrenia
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Music therapy many help to ease the depression, anxiety and emotional withdrawal symptoms of schizophrenia, British scientists said on Wednesday.
In a small study in four hospitals, researchers at Imperial College London found that encouraging patients to express themselves through music seemed to improve their symptoms.
“We have known for some time that psychological treatments can help people with schizophrenia, but these have only been used when people are fairly stable,” said Dr. Mike Crawford, the author of the study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
Massage May Help Dementia Patients With Agitation
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Massage could offer a drug-free way to treat agitation and depression among dementia patients, but there are still too few studies about the practice to know for sure, according to a review of recent research.
In two studies, hand massage and gentle touching during conversation helped ease agitation and restore appetite in dementia patients over short periods of about an hour.
Antipsychotic deemed effective for anxiety disorder
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The anti-psychotic drug trifluoperazine is well-tolerated and superior to inactive “placebo” in the short-term treatment of generalized anxiety disorder, a chronic disorder associated with exaggerated worry and tension, according to a study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. However, the value of other antipsychotics for treating anxiety is less clear because of the lack of large, well-designed studies.
Dr. Keming Gao, of University Hospitals of Cleveland/Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, and colleagues conducted a review to examine the benefits of antipsychotic drugs for anxiety disorders. The researchers also reviewed studies on bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder that included data regarding changes in anxiety.
