Mental Health

Despite my mood stabilizer to help chill me out, my mind still runs pretty fast, and rarely gets a break from constant thoughts zooming in and out. So, as a result, meditation has always been a struggle for me. It wasn’t until recently that I found a way to calming my mind during mediation so thought I’d share what I’ve learned. I was raised Catholic. I was one of those kids that went to church during Lent on my recess break which one could say laid the groundwork for meditating. Due to the ambiance of church, I was more or less forced to sit in the pew and be quiet. I found prayer to be helpful in calming my mind despite the ongoing rapid thoughts. Sometimes I would walk around the church and do stations of the cross and pray that my mind would become calm. I didn’t know I was hypomanic and didn’t know any of the symptoms so just thought if I tried hard enough the ruthless intense anxiety and rapid thoughts would cease with prayer. After grammar school, I attended...

In a new study, researchers from the Danish iPSYCH project demonstrate that people with the highest genetic propensity are over two and a half times as likely to be treated in a psychiatric hospital for depression compared to people with the lowest propensity. This knowledge could be utilised to strengthen preventative efforts for those who are at risk. In Denmark, 15.5 per cent of woman and nine per cent of men receive treatment for depression at a psychiatric hospital at some stage of their lives. Depression is a common but very serious condition which is very costly for both the individual and society as a whole. Researchers have now completed a study in which they followed 34,500 Danes for up to 20 years and measured their genetic risk for developing depression. "The study showed that the risk of being treated for depression at a psychiatric hospital was more than two and a half times higher for people with a high polygenic risk score," explains professor at iPSYCH a...

To lift his mother’s spirits, a man creates a list of the world’s great things in “Every Brilliant Thing.” CATCO’s production of Duncan Macmillan’s play continues through Feb. 10 in the Riffe Center’s Studio Two Theatre. “It’s a play of hope and celebration about the joy of living,” said Artistic Director Steven C. Anderson, director of the production. “Even though the play touches upon mental illness, it has an incredible life force that’s very moving.” The 70-minute solo piece revolves around a son’s struggle with his mother’s depression while coping with his own manic depression from age 7 through adulthood. “He writes this list, of everything that could make a person happy, to save his mother but ultimately ends up saving himself,” Anderson said. Critic Ben Brantley, in his 2014 review for The New York Times, praised the “captivating” and “very funny” piece for its ability to deliver “sentimentality without shame.” Adapted from Macmillan’s story “Sleeve Notes” with British co...

Researchers discover a correlation between psychiatric disorders and events during the prenatal stage Particular genetic variants in the human genome that are important for the development of the brain early in the life of the foetus are frequently found in psychiatric disorders. This is shown by a study carried out by iPSYCH. Researchers studied a total of eight million genetic variants and in connection with this they found that a number of these variants occur particularly often in people who have one of more of the following psychiatric disorders: schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, autism and ADHD. This background is provided by Professor Thomas Werge from the Mental Health Services & University of Copenhagen and the Lundbeck Foundation's Initiative for Integrated Psychiatric Research, commonly referred to as iPSYCH, which has received a total of DKK 361 million in funding from the Lundbeck Foundation. He explains: "When we take a closer look at these g...

Source: Free-Photos/Pixabay While there is no consensus on the exact definition of disability (especially psychological disability), there is greater recognition these days that, like physical disease, psychological conditions can cause functional impairment and dysfunction—some more so than others. In a paper, published in the November issue of Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology , Edlund et al. conclude that among the 15 mental health conditions examined, mood disorders (e.g., depression) are associated with the greatest functional impairment and disability . 1 The Mental Health Surveillance Study Data for the present research came from the Mental Health Surveillance Study (MHSS). The MHSS is a sub-sample of 2008-2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an annual survey of non-institutionalized US civilians 12 years or older. MHSS, however, includes only individuals aged 18 and over. For the Mental Health Surveillance Study, researchers condu...

A new study reveals that approximately 1 in 5 individuals may experience mental health symptoms up to six months after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), suggesting the importance of follow-up care for these patients. Scientists also identified factors that may increase the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or major depressive disorder following mild mTBI or concussion through analysis of the Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury (TRACK-TBI) study cohort. The study was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry . "Mental health disorders after concussion have been studied primarily in military populations, and not much is known about these outcomes in civilians," said Patrick Bellgowan, Ph.D., NINDS program director. "These results may help guide follow-up care and suggest that doct...

RICHMOND, Va. (WCAV) — A Virginia House of Delegates committee unanimously endorsed a bill to improve mental health care in jails in the Commonwealth on Tuesday. House Bill 1942 was patroned by Delegate Rob Bell (R-Albemarle) and it passed the Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee. "This bill would, for the first time, establish actual standards for mental health care in Virginia jails," said Bell. "These standards would be developed and enforced by the [state] Board of Corrections." The legislation would also require jails to coordinate inmate mental health care with health providers in the community. Bell says the bill was prompted by the death of Jamycheal Mitchell, a mentally ill inmate who died in a jail in Hampton Roads. He also says it was proposed and endorsed by the Deeds Commission, which works to study mental health reform for the General Assembly. "We would like to divert mentally ill people from jail where possible," added Bell. ...

State Rep. Cedric Hayden , R-Roseburg, introduced legislation Wednesday that would establish three small around-the-clock support centers for Oregonians experiencing mental health crises. Opening such facilities would help “close one of the gaps in our mental health system where the choices right now seem to be either expensive hospitalizations or people in need of treatment languishing in our justice system with no care,” said Hayden, a dentist who is vice chairman of the House Committee on Health Care. Hayden’s legislation, House Bill 2831 , would instruct the Oregon Health Authority to provide $2.25 million in funding to nonprofits to open “peer respite centers,” home-like facilities that provide voluntary peer support to people “experiencing acute distress, anxiety or emotional pain that may lead to the need for inpatient hospital services,” according to the bill. The three centers, each in a home-like setting with six or fewer beds, would be located in Portland, southern Orego...

J. Andrew Chacko, MD, MSE, FAPA, who has trained and worked as an officer in the US Navy, as an engineer, and most recently as a psychiatrist, sees problems everywhere. It’s a gift. “I am at my core a designer, and part of the wiring of being a designer is being inherently discontent,” he said. “It has made me look at medicine with very different eyes and ask ‘how can we make it better?’ ” Thankfully, Dr. Chacko—a Stanford-trained engineer/artist who went to medical school after discovering not all physicians were exactly open to innovation ideas from industry outsiders—has never been one to stay mired in the status quo. During his upcoming featured session at Elevate by Psych Congress Dr. Chacko will instruct his fellow mental health care providers in design thinking, a process widely used in the design industry to problem-solve creatively and effectively. Elevate to Offer Clinicians Practical Financial Advice Design thinking, he said, ultimately has the power to bring about real...

Shortly after a gunman killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled a  40-point plan  for improving school safety, which included calls for boosting mental health services for students.  "The strategy that I most strongly encourage the legislature to consider is greater investment in mental health, especially in crisis intervention counselors," Abbott said. "As long as mental health challenges trouble our children, there will never be enough safety barriers that we can build to protect our students." The KERA News conversation Abbott's plan calls for adding more school counselors to individual campuses and making sure first responders are equipped with mental health resources. With the state legislature back in session, lawmakers are proposing their own ideas for meeting mental health care needs in Texas schools and beyond.  Expanding Services State Representative Shawn Theirry, a Democrat from  Housto...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was supposed to make mental health care accessible to everyone. The law mandated “parity” -- that insurance companies must cover mental health services, including substance abuse treatment, on par with medical and surgical care. But the goal hasn’t been realized. Loopholes in the ACA and other federal laws allowed some plans to limit or exclude mental and behavioral health coverage. Oversight and enforcement of the mandates have been inconsistent. And, of course, millions of Americans remain without health coverage. So some state and local governments have begun taking matters into their own hands, enacting tax increases to fund mental health services. Seattle, Larimer County, Colo., and California are among jurisdictions that have taken that route; a 2018 report from the RAND Corp. found that the California tax had expanded services to 130,000 young people in Los Angeles County alone. Among the latest jurisdictions to move in this direction is Denver, w...

Stephen W. Patrick U.S. counties that have shortages of mental health care providers and higher rates of long-term unemployment also have higher rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, according to research published in JAMA. “What is clear when I take care of infants and talk to their mothers is that while NAS isn’t particularly clinically complex, it can be socially complex,” Stephen W. Patrick, MD, MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics and health policy at Vanderbilt University and director of the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy, told Infectious Diseases in Children . “The stories I hear from pregnant women are long stories of trauma and violence. This study was our first attempt to try to see what is happening beyond the hospital walls. Sometimes, we focus in on what’s happening at the bedside, but so much of NAS occurs outside of the hospital.” Patrick and colleagues conducted a retrospective, repeated cross-sectional study that assessed birth and economic ...

Ben Franklin may have had it partly right with his belief that "early to rise" makes one "healthy, wealthy and wise." Natural early risers may experience greater overall well-being and better mental health compared with night owls , a new study suggests. But what Franklin likely didn't know is that your chronotype, or tendency to sleep and rise at a particular time, is heavily dependent on your genes — and there might not be much you can do to change it. In the new study, published today (Jan. 29) in the journal Nature Communications , researchers identified 351 regions in the human genome associated with being an early bird, only 24 of which were known previously. Those people in the study with the most gene variants associated with early rising tended to go to sleep upward of a half hour sooner than others with fewer of these variants. [ 5 Surprising Sleep Discoveries ] What's more, the study found that these genomic regions were linked to the body...

A new study reveals that approximately 1 in 5 individuals may experience mental health symptoms up to six months after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), suggesting the importance of follow-up care for these patients. Scientists also identified factors that may increase the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or major depressive disorder following mild mTBI or concussion through analysis of the Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury (TRACK-TBI) study cohort. The study was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry . "Mental health disorders after concussion have been studied primarily in military populations, and not much is known about these outcomes in civilians," said Patrick Bellgowan, Ph.D., NINDS program director. "These results may help guide follow-up care and suggest that doct...

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Higher genetic risk scores for depression and other psychiatric disorders are associated with an increased risk of a diagnosis of depression within a general population cohort, a new study has found. A number of genetic loci have been linked to risk of developing major depressive disorder and polygenic risk scores based on these loci are associated with disease risk, but researchers from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium noted that such tools have not been examined deeply in a general population context. Researchers led by Aarhus University's Esben Agerbo have now examined whether polygenic risk score for major depression and other psychiatric conditions are associated with a depression diagnosis in a general population using the Danish iPSYCH2012 case-cohort study. As they reported today in JAMA Psychiatry , the researchers found a link between polygenic liability and first depressive episode. They also noted that polygenic risk scores for bipolar di...

Published by Madelyn Gillentine and Christian Schaaf Baylor College of Medicine , Texas Children’s Hospital , University of Washington , and the University of Cologne These findings are described in the article entitled CHRNA7 copy number gains are enriched in adolescents with major depressive and anxiety disorders , recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders (Journal of Affective Disorders 239 (2018) 247-252). This work was conducted by Madelyn A. Gillentine from Baylor College of Medicine , Texas Children’s Hospital , and the University of Washington , Ricardo Lozoya from Texas Children’s Hospital , Jiani Yin from Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital , Christopher M. Grochowski, Janson J. White, and Chadi A. Calarge from Baylor College of Medicine , and Christian P. Schaaf from Baylor College of Medicine , Texas Children’s Hospital , University Hospital Cologne , and the University of Cologne . Major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety di...

A new study reveals that approximately 1 in 5 individuals may experience mental health symptoms up to six months after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), suggesting the importance of follow-up care for these patients. Scientists also identified factors that may increase the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or major depressive disorder following mild mTBI or concussion through analysis of the Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury (TRACK-TBI) study cohort. The study was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry . "Mental health disorders after concussion have been studied primarily in military populations, and not much is known about these outcomes in civilians," said Patrick Bellgowan, Ph.D., NINDS program director. "These results may help guide follow-up care and suggest that doct...

Jefferson County commissioners approved a two-year allocation of nearly $1.3 million for mental health and substance abuse services at their regular business meeting Jan. 28. The Hargrove Fund is raised by the county from 0.1 percent of its sales and use tax. The fund was authorized by former state Sen. Jim Hargrove for mental health and substance abuse disorder treatment programs along with therapeutic court systems. Commissioners approved $640,882 annually to fund mental health and substance abuse prevention services for 2019 and 2020. “We were the first county in the state to create an ordinance (for the Hargrove Fund), that was signed Oct. 3, 2005,” said Anna McEnery, who is the county coordinator of the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Advisory Committee. “The priority funding areas are prevention in schools and at home for children coping with mental health and substance abuse issues,” McEnery said. “We also want to reduce the incidence and severity of substance-use disorder...

Mental health care in the United States is going mainstream with the opening of the first mental health clinic tucked into a Texas Walmart. The company rolled out the concept to bring behavioral services to a community setting that was convenient and affordable, Walmart said in a press release. The clinic, which is Walmart's first foray into provider services, is to be launched through the company's Beacon Care Services umbrella. Beacon Health Options is a privately held behavioral services company that serves as an intermediary between insurers and providers. The clinic in Texas is staffed with one licensed clinical social worker and will focus on treatment for anxiety, depression, grief, relationship problems, and other stresses, the press release noted. Patients with more serious psychiatric problems or who require a prescription are referred to nearby mental health professionals within the Beacon system. Prices are on a sliding fee scale for those without insurance. ...

CLINTON — Amid a national conversation regarding the state of mental health care in America, new mental health services are coming to the Clinton School District. Utilizing the services of Life Connections, full-time mental health experts will be in-house at every school building in the district for the 2019-2020 school year, allowing for more in-depth assistance for students in need. District officials along with Alyssa Hennings, a mental health service provider for Life Connections, unveiled plans for the new program Monday night. A cost of roughly $65,000 for the year comes with the partnership, but it's a cost that Clinton School District Superintendent Gary DeLacy feels will immediately pay for itself. "I basically challenged the different agencies in Clinton to come up with a plan and present it to me, and one agency (Life Connections) really took that to heart," DeLacy told Clinton School Board members Monday. At Clinton High School, one licensed therapist w...

View Comments Wheeler: 'We need the state's help to be successful' with services attached to projects funded by city and Metro bonds that voters have approved. Metro area mayors have endorsed more state aid for housing and support services, such as mental health and drug treatment, that keep people from being homeless. A dozen of the 25 members of the Metropolitan Mayors Consortium outlined their six priorities for the 2019 Oregon Legislature at a press conference Tuesday in Salem. "Housing that is affordable, with support services attached, works to stabilize some of the most vulnerable people in our communities," Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said. But for the city and Multnomah County to reach a joint goal of 2,000 new units for some of the poorest residents within 10 years, he added, "We need the state's help to be successful and we are eager to work with our colleagues at the state level." Portland voters approved a $258 million bond for hous...