Archive for the ‘Mental Disorder’ Category
Mental Health Needs of Returning Veterans, including PTSD and Addictions
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
Research suggests that 1 out of 3 veterans returning from military service abroad will come home with psychological issues in one way or another. One out of 6 of these will suffer from PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms. All members of the military, upon their homecoming as civilians, are required to have a medical and psychological exit exam. Often times, these veterans do not admit to any problems needing treatment in fear of a discharge delay from the military. As a result, veterans returning to civilian life will need additional attention once they are home, safe and sound. This attention is readily available from professional counseling for military men and women. (more…)
Mental Health Needs of Seniors
Saturday, November 26th, 2011
No group is so underserved, nor more deserving of our care and attention than the elderly, those who have paid their dues, done their part in rearing today’s leaders and earned our respect. However, this same group of people has had the highest suicide rate of any age group in the nation and their specific mental and physiological needs are the most neglected in the nation. Most of the elderly who have committed suicide had seen their physicians as recently as 30 days prior, some as little as 24 hours prior. Their distress obviously went undetected.
Seniors face a combination of issues that can snowball into a situation that may seem overwhelming to them. Not only is their mind perhaps not as keen as it once was, but (more…)
Abuse caused by Mental Illness
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011“When other factors are held constant, mental illness does increase use of addictive goods — relative to use by the overall population — by 20 percent for alcohol, 27 percent for cocaine, and 86 percent for cigarettes.”
Mental illness is defined as an abnormality in cognition, emotion, mood, or social function, which is severe in level or duration. Many people experience personal upheavals, but a true diagnosable mental illness affects about 24 percent of the U.S. population in any given year. Still, a staggering 43 percent of the population has had a diagnosable mental illness at some point in their lives. There is a definite connection between mental illness and the use of addictive substances. Individuals with an existing mental illness consume roughly 38 percent of all alcohol, 44 percent of all cocaine, and 40 percent of all cigarettes.
Mental Disorder History
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011Throughout history, man has had to confront mental illness, and each society has developed its own solutions. By tracking these developments, a deeper understanding of human interaction and concepts of normalcy can be gathered.
Prehistoric times
In prehistoric times, mental illnesses were assumed to stem from magical beings that interfered with the mind. Individual tribes and groups of shamans had their own spells and rituals that they used to attempt to cure such mental illnesses. Often, such rituals took the form of exorcisms, in which the shaman would attempt to coax the evil spirit that was causing the disorder from the body. In some prehistoric societies, a primitive form of surgery was used to attempt to exercise the malignant spirits. Trepanation (also spelled trephination), the practice of drilling a hole through part of the skull without damaging the brain, was believed to allow the spirits trapped inside the skull to release. Skulls with trepanning holes dating back more than 10,000 years have been found in Neolithic Europe and South America. In fact, the presence of calluses on the surfaces of many skulls recovered showed that the operation had a surprisingly high recovery rate.
Personal Opinion of Mental Illness
Saturday, October 29th, 2011This article was inspired by Andrea’s wonderful piece, Dopamine: The Neurotransmitter With Many Faces. It started out as a comment to her article, but gradually evolved into it’s own article. Bearing in mind the context in which this article was conceived, I would prefer not to alter the original text, but rather let you see the pristine form in which it was first written. If nothing else, this should give the reader some insight into how a writer’s mind works–at least this writer’s mind.
You are quite correct in saying:
Everyone’s neurochemistry is different
which is why any psychopharmocoligical treatment is idiosyncratic. What I mean by this is no one knows how anyone is going to respond to any particular psychoactive drug or combinations of drugs until it is administered and the effects become apparent in either an adverse or beneficial way or not at all.
Dopamine: Multi-Faces The Neurotransmitter
Saturday, October 29th, 2011A new study that was just released on Sunday and published online in Nature Neuroscience has found that Ritalin, a popular medication to treat ADD/HD, helps improve learning not only by improving focus, but also by increasing plasticity of neural connections.
The player involved in this new discovery is none other than that magical little neurotransmitter, one of my good friends, dopamine. As well as giving insight into to the nature of attention deficit disorders, providing new avenues to pursue for treatment, this study brings to light a few important facts about dopamine.
First, note that the authors specify particular dopamine receptors that are acted upon by Ritalin, D1 and D2, which result in different changes depending on which receptor is activated.
Introduction to Epigenetics
Friday, October 28th, 2011For some time now it has been acknowledged that a discrepancy exists between the information provided by the DNA sequence (i.e. number of genes) and what is actually represented at the level of encoded products (messenger RNA and proteins). What is now clear is that, although the DNA sequence provides the basic blueprint for life, this code is subject to a number of ‘epigenetic’ modifications that provide another complex layer of information.
The development of the idea and the first use of the term ‘epigenotype’ occurred as far back as 1942. Conrad H. Waddington suggested the existence of epigenetic mechanisms to explain the control of gene expression programmes during development. Implicit in the term epigenetics is that these mechanisms are labile and are erased and reset. Over the years the definition of epigenetics has shifted a little, such that these mechanisms are not limited to development only, although there is still an understanding that epigenetic marks controlling gene expression are stably transmitted through cell divisions. For the purposes of this review, epigenetics can be loosely defined as the transmission and perpetuation of coding information that is not based on alteration of the DNA sequence. These coding changes may be mediated via chemical marking of the DNA sequence itself (DNA methylation) and/or chemical tagging of histone proteins that bind DNA and are molecular tools by which gene expression levels are controlled.
Mental Desease by The Darwin
Friday, October 28th, 2011It is a curious fact, not diluted by the frequency – that when anti-evolutionists are pinned against the wall they will often resort to either sheer fabrication, or……in the case of one histrionic and unnamed “pastor” – red herrings. With Charles Darwin’s ascent to the pinnacle of biological science this ought not be surprising.
In the past it was based on the canard that “Darwin converted on his deathbed” – when no such thing occurred as pointed out by Daniel Dennett in his Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. But give the religious cranks an ‘A’ for effort in trying to peddle this hogswill far an wide.
Panic Attack Sign
Thursday, October 27th, 2011Symptoms of panic attacks are the expressions or sensations those are either visible on your face or those which can be felt internally when someone is suffering from a panic. Generally the word ‘symptom’ is used to locate the effects of illness. But panic attack is not an illness. This is just a disorder in our nervous system that causes behavioral dysfunction. And it occurs for a while.
These symptoms are unpleasant, but harmless. Whenev er one is attacked by 
a panic he feels that he might have a heart attack as the symptoms are quite similar. But a panic attack never causes any harm like a heart attack. But always remember that these symptoms use to vary from person to person.
Eating-related Behaviour is one of Serious Psychological Disorder Sign
Thursday, October 27th, 2011Eating disorder charities are reporting a rise in the number of people suffering from a serious psychological condition characterised by an obsession with healthy eating. The condition, orthorexia nervosa, affects equal numbers of men and women, but sufferers tend to be aged over 30, middle-class and well-educated.
The condition was named by a Californian doctor, Steven Bratman, in 1997, and is described as a “fixation on righteous eating”. “Other eating disorders focus on quantity of food but orthorexics can be overeight or look normal. They are solely concerned with the quality of the food they put in their bodies, refining and restricting their diets according to their personal understanding of which foods are truly ‘pure’.”