LinkBlog
[USA] Think Social Networks, Blogs Can’t Hurt You? Health insurers can use your on-line posts to avoid paying for treatment
Debunking the 'Chemical Imbalance' myth (pdf)
The Johns Hopkins Guide to Antidepressants (Note: requires registration of a valid email address)
Not Depressed, Just British!
recommended links
Depression Is Real Coalition
-
ABIL: Agoraphobics Building
Independant Lives -
Agoraphobia and Panic
Disorder Foundation -
Anxiety Disorders Association
of America - Anxiety Network Australia
- Anxiety-Panic.Com
- AnxietyZone
- Army Behavioral Health
- BrainPhysics - OCD
-
Canadian Network for Mood
and Anxiety Treatments - Children of Hoarders
- Choices in Mental Health (UK)
-
Dart Foundation: Gateway to PTSD
information -
David Baldwin's
Trauma Information Pages - e-couch free personal self-help guide
- EMDR Institute, Inc.
- EMDR Network Japan
- Fear of Flying course (free)
- Healthy Minds
- Information for People with Anxiety Disorders
- Internet Guide to REBT, CBT
- Living with a Brain Disorder
- Morita Therapy
- Mayo Clinic : Depression
- Mayo Clinic : GAD
- Mayo Clinic : OCD
- Mayo Clinic : Panic Attacks
- Mayo Clinic : PTSD
- Mayo Clinic : Social Anxiety
-
Medicines.org.uk - Anxiety &
Depression guides - Mind-Your-Mind Canada
- National Center for PTSD
-
National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) - No Such Thing As Crazy
- OCD Action, UK
- OCD Ireland
- Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
- Open Minds, Open Doors
- Out of the silence - site for young people with mental illness
- Paniccure.com
- Partners With PTSD
- Prescription Drug Information
- Psychiatric Service Dog Society
- PsychNews
-
Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT) - Sane Australia
-
Shyness & Social Anxiety
Service of Australia -
Social Phobia/Social Anxiety
Association - Social Anxiety Support board
-
South African Depression &
Anxiety Group - Suicide Prevention Help
-
tAPir - the Anxiety Panic
internet resource -
The Panic Center (Free
CBT based programs) - The School of OCD
- UN-WHO Drug Trials Database
- U.S. Army Behavioral Health - PTSD
we support
"just don't smoke"
Yul Brynner
- Menthol cigarettes harder to quit
- Secondhand smoke in cars serious threat to kid's health
- Starting smoking young increases addiction risk
-
Smoking doesn't slim girls;
stunts boys' growth - 40 reasons why you should quit smoking
- Pregnant smokers 'prime' their kids to smoke
- Smoking related coronary artery disease quickly reversed if young smokers quit
- Not ready to quit? Try cutting back
- Half smoking again within year of lung cancer surgery
- Cutting back 'compensation' increases toxin load per cigarette
- Tobacco companies upped nicotine level 11% since 1998
- Workplace passive smoke increases lung cancer risk
- Hooked by genes: The DNA sequences cigarette companies love
- Smoking causes long lasting changes to brain's bio chemistry
- Nicotine receptor stimulant trebles the odds of stopping smoking
- Bupropion, nortriptyline double chances of quitting
- Nicotine's powerful role in reinforcing smoking
- Pregnant smokers raise child's risk of stroke, heart attack
- Smoking linked to pancreatic cancer
- Neurobiology of Smokers' Cravings
- 'Low cancer risk' cigarettes as deadly as regular kind
- Quitting reduces lung cancer death risk by 70%
- Fetal nicotine exposure linked to teen attention problems
- Outdoor second-hand smoke exposure can harm
- Response to day's first cigarette predicts ease of quitting
- 'Healthy' children of smoking parents aren't really so healthy
- Children of smokers have up to five times higher levels of a nicotine toxin
- Smoking increases risk of dementia
- Smoking kills even after quitting
- Antenatal second hand smoke exposure increases child's psychological problems
- Smoking could kill 1 billion this century: WHO
- Just 1 cigarette can lead to nicotine addiction
- Smokers less likely to survive early stage lung cancer
- Smokeless tobacco delivers carcinogens more efficiently than cigarettes!
- Smoking permanently turns on genes that increase lung cancer susceptibility
- Secondhand smoke a health hazard for pets too
- Hypnosis for smoking cessation sees strong results
- Smoking doesn't burn fat
- Smoking linked to sagging breasts
- No evidence waterpipes decrease smoking harm
- Tobacco smoke + alcohol damage hearts more than either alone
anti torture campaign
- Torture experts write APA policy
- [APA] still rocked by torture debate
- Petition for psychologists
- AMA president says APA "did not accurately represent our ethical guidelines"
- Psychologists Aiding Torturers
-
Annual conference endorses
APA's torture policy :( - Physicians for Human Rights call on Congress to vote No on Military Commissions Bill
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Torture is a Form of Trauma;
Trauma Causes PTSD - Psychoanalysts' association condemns torture use
- Humiliating, inhumane or degrading treatment IS torture
- Two American psychologists accused of war crimes. U.S. DoD investigating.
- DoD report proves psychologists central to POW/detainee abuse (pdf)
- 40 psychologists demand APA change policy on torture (pdf)
- Did the American Psychological Association turn a blind eye to torture for medicine precribing rights?
- Will psychologists still abet torture?
- Psychologist, Author Mary Pipher Returns APA Award Over Interrogation Policy
- Guantanamo Medical Role Likened to South Africa Under Apartheid
- The ethics of interrogation and the American Psychological Association
Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Lt. General John (Jeff) Kimmons, has stated that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through abusive interrogation methods in the last 5 years.
monument, Monmouth County
New Jersey.
Anxious, depressed over 65s more likely to use alternative medicines for physical ills
Winston-Salem, N.C. - People over 65 who are depressed or anxious turn to complementary or alternative medicine more often than older people who are not anxious or depressed - but not to treat their mental symptoms.
Joseph. G. Grzywacz, Ph.D., and colleagues from Wake Forest University School of Medicine reported in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine that 34.9 percent of people over 65 who had symptoms of anxiety or depression used complementary or alternative medicine (CAM), compared to 26.5 percent of those without mental symptoms.
"Older adults frequently report that depressive feelings are a natural part of aging and may not view them as something requiring treatment,"If praying for health is considered a form of CAM and added in, the percentage jumps to 81.7 percent of those with mental symptoms, compared to 64.6 percent of those without.
But the results showed that fewer than 20 percent of those with anxiety or depression used CAM to treat it. That was a surprise.
"Based on previous research and models of health self management, it was anticipated that CAM use would be greater among older adults with self-reported anxiety or depression than those without such conditions," said Grzywacz, associate professor of family and community medicine.
The results are based on the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) Alternative Health Supplement, which Grzywacz said was "the largest and most representative study of CAM use in the U.S. population to date." The survey included 30,785 persons who participated in face-to-face interviews with U.S. Census Bureau personnel.
People who answered "yes" to the question "During the past 12 months have you been frequently depressed or anxious?" were defined as having anxiety or depression, he said.
"The findings demonstrate that a significantly greater proportion of older adults with anxiety or depression, in contrast to those without these conditions, use CAM," said Grzywacz. "These differences are driven by greater use of spiritual practices, relaxation techniques and non-vitamin, non-mineral natural products."
But he added, "Older adults with anxiety or depression generally do not use CAM to treat their mental conditions."
He said that the 2002 NHIS survey was the first with sufficient numbers of older adults to provide description of CAM use among those with anxiety and depression.
Grzywacz said that mental disorders among older adults are under-diagnosed and under-treated.
Partly, that's because people over 65 don't believe it is treatable. "Older adults frequently report that depressive feelings are a natural part of aging and may not view them as something requiring treatment," said Grzywacz.
Another surprise was that there was no difference among race or ethnic groups in the use of CAM for poor mental health. Last December, Grzywacz and his team reported that, among people over 65, blacks and Native Americans make much greater use of home remedies than whites. The differences seemed to be based on culture rather than access to health care.
In the current study, he said, "in the absence of conventional treatment, we expected that minority elders would seek other therapies to manage their mental health." But that didn't happen.
The research was supported by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Grzywacz JG, Suerken CK, Quandt SA, Bell RA, et al.
Older adults' use of complementary and alternative medicine for mental health: findings from the 2002 national health interview survey.
J Altern Complement Med. 2006 Jun;12(5):467-73. [Abstract]