Control es la biografía de Ian Curtis, vocalista de Joy Division desde 1973, cuando aún era un adolescente que estaba en el colegio, hasta la víspera del arranque del primer tour americano del grupo en 1980. Durante estos años, asistimos a la evolución de Curtis, que parte de su admiración adolescente de David Bowie, a un punk inspirado en la obra de los Sex Pistols, hasta llegar a convertirse en una estrella dentro del rock New Wave, movimiento musical derivado del punk rock, surgido a finales de los 70 en Inglaterra.
La película, basada en la biografía de su ex-mujer Touching From A Distance, hace un repaso por todos los acontecimientos que marcaron la vida de Ian: epilepsia, fracaso matrimonial, su amante, su grupo. Corbijn utiliza estos hechos en un intento por explicar que fue lo que le llevó a ahorcarse, con tan sólo 23 años.
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta mental illness. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta mental illness. Mostrar todas las entradas
miércoles, 9 de julio de 2014
The Dopaminergic Mind in Human Evolution and History
The Dopaminergic Mind in Human Evolution and History
Author: Fred H. Previc
Date: May, 2009.
miércoles, 20 de febrero de 2013
Insomnia, Despair about Sleep May Raise Risk of Suicide
By Makini Brice. Counsel & Heal.Researchers have long known that insomnia and nightmares are risk factors for suicide, but they were not sure what role that the conditions precisely played. Now, researchers believe that they may have the answer. They found that insomnia can give way to a specific form of hopelessness. While hopelessness has also long been a characteristic risk factor for suicide, this despair is different. For people who fear that they will never have a good night of sleep again, suicidal thoughts may increase.
In fact, according to WJBF, people who have insomnia that persists for over a year have up to 30 times the risk of developing depression than people who do not. An estimated 60 percent of people who have depression also have insomnia.
The study was led by Dr. W. Vaughn McCall from Georgia Regents University, and was performed in collaboration with researchers from Wake Forest University in North Carolina and the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Dr. McCall explained in a statement that he has had patients who developed increasingly negative and unfounded thoughts about their sleep, thinking that they had damaged their immune systems for good, or that one night of bad sleep would mean that their sleep for the rest of the week would be tainted as well, according to Fox News.
The study was conducted with 50 participants, with ages ranging from 20 to 80. All of the patients had depression disorder; they were all either in-patients, out-patients or being treated at the emergency department. Over half of the patients had attempted suicide before the study; most were taking some kind of antidepressant. The researchers asked all of the participants questions linked to dysfunctional sleep behavior, like "Do you think that you will ever get a good night's rest again?"
The answers surprised the researchers. "It was this dysfunctional thinking, all these negative thoughts about sleep that was the mediating factor that explained why insomnia was linked to suicide," said Dr. McCall in a statement. "If you talk with depressed people, they really feel like they have failed at so many things. It goes something like, 'My marriage is a mess, I hate my job, I can't communicate with my kids, I can't even sleep.' There is a sense of failure and hopelessness that now runs from top to bottom and this is one more thing."
The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
jueves, 14 de febrero de 2013
Psychology of hoarding: From collecting to being buried alive
February 7, 2013. VOXXI. By Hope Gillette.
Hoarding is classified as a type of obsessive compulsive disorder; however, emerging evidence and research suggests it may be a mental condition on its own.
According to a report from Discovery Magazine, hoarding has a unique signature within the circuitry of the brain. Instead of a form of obsessive compulsive disorder, which is in turn an anxiety disorder, hoarding is thought to be a natural human instinct gone unregulated.
“Hoarding is a compulsive tendency to acquire and hold onto things, usually that one doesn’t need and doesn’t use,” F. Diane Barth, psychotherapist in private practice in NYC, told VOXXI. “It becomes pathological when the things one has hoarded take up room in one’s living space, filling up closets and covering floors, walls or furniture. Severe hoarding makes it hard for a person to carry out normal activities of daily living.”
From collecting to hoarding
According to Barth, hoarding is collecting “gone wild.” Often, hoarders don’t know what they have in their piles of things; they may buy several versions of the same item because they have no idea where the original version is, she explained.
Hoarders also often don’t use most of what they buy or collect. Unlike most collectors, they aren’t proud of what they’ve collected and have no interest in showing it to other people. In fact, hoarders are often embarrassed by or ashamed of their hoarding issues.
“Many hoarders like to think of themselves as collectors,” said Travis Osborne, a Seattle psychologist who treats hoarding and has made appearances on The Learning Channels Hoarding: Buried Alive, in a University of Washington guest lecture. “But collectors take pride in their possessions, whereas hoarders feel shame when other people see all of the stuff that they have in their homes.”
Signs of hoarding
Approximately 2.5 to 5 percent of the population in the United States is affected by a hoarding disorder, and few hoarders ever seek out treatment for their condition.
Barth tells VOXXI there are varying degrees of hoarding, and Osborne notes studies suggest more men than women hoard. The condition also seems to be more prevalent in older adults.
“…There are people who hold onto things because they have meaning — like clothing that belonged to a parent who has died — but who have not covered their entire home with their mother’s belongings; there are people whose collections, for example, books or clothes, have gotten out of control, but who are still able to live normally in their homes,” said Barth. ”And then there are people who save everything — newspapers, books, boxes and so on — whose homes are running over with stuff, so that they can barely find space to sit on a chair, sleep on their bed or cook in their kitchen, and who can’t explain why they are holding onto these things but can’t separate from them.”
Common warning signs of hoarding, according to the Mayo Clinic, include:
- Inability or unwillingness to discard items
- Moving items from one area to another without discarding them
- Keeping stacks of paper
- Keeping useless items such as napkins or trash
- Trouble making decisions
- Procrastination
- Lack of organization
- Excessive attachment to items
- Shame or embarrassment attached to collected items
- Limited social interaction
What items are commonly hoarded?
“Hoarding almost always starts in childhood, where they have a really hard time getting rid of things,” Osborn said in his lecture. “If there are parents or other people in the house getting rid of things, stuff doesn’t build up as much until they live on their own.”
Items commonly hoarded, according to Harvard Medical School, include:
- Food
- Newspapers
- Books
- Clothing
While television has increased the awareness of animal hoarding, experts say it is actually quite rare. Any item can be hoarded; it all depends on the individual and the emotional and mental attachment to a specific thing.
Can hoarders recover?
Cognitive behavior therapy currently shows a lot of promise in patients with hoarding issues. The method of therapy uses a trained professional to help hoarders learn to dispose of items gradually, eventually leaving them to do so on their own. Hoarders are taught to modify their thought patterns, questioning why they are keeping a particular item. Eventually, individuals are weaned off of the impulse to acquire new items.
martes, 25 de diciembre de 2012
Reappraisal Defuses Strong Emotional Responses to Israel-Palestine Conflict
Reappraisal is a widely-used cognitive strategy that can help people to regulate their reactions to emotionally charged events. Now, new research suggests that reappraisal may even be effective in changing people’s emotional responses in the context of one of the most intractable conflicts worldwide: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Negative intergroup emotions play a crucial role in decisions that perpetuate intractable conflicts,” observes lead researcher Eran Halperin of the New School of Psychology at the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel.
With this in mind, Halperin and his colleagues wondered whether cognitive reappraisal, a strategy that involves changing the meaning of a situation to change the emotional response to it, might be effective in diminishing such negative intergroup emotions.
Their research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
In the first study, 39 Jewish Israeli participants viewed a series of photos that were deliberately selected to induce anger. Some of the participants were trained in cognitive reappraisal — they were taught to respond to the images like scientists, considering them objectively, analytically, and in a cold and detached manner. The other participants received no instructions.
Then all of the participants watched an anger-inducing presentation. The four-minute presentation — with pictures, text, and music — described Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian response, including the launching of rockets, the election of Hamas, and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier. Before watching, participants were asked to apply the reappraisal technique they had learned.
Halperin and colleagues found that participants who were taught to reappraise their emotional responses expressed less anger towards Palestinians, greater support for conciliatory policies, and less support for aggressive policies than the participants who received no training. The results suggest that the increase in support for conciliatory policies could be explained — at least in part — by decreased intergroup anger.
To examine whether these findings would extend to conflict-related events as they occurred in the real world, Halperin and colleagues conducted a second study.
The researchers knew that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas would be presenting a bid to the United Nations seeking full UN membership for Palestine in September 2011. They recruited 60 Jewish Israelis to participate in a study and, six days before the UN bid, they asked the participants to rate their current positive and negative emotions and their general support for different types of policies.
Once again, the researchers trained half of the participants to use cognitive reappraisal. Over the course of the following week, the participants received three text message reminders to use the technique they had learned. A week after the training and two days after the bid, the researchers assessed participants’ emotional and political reactions.
As Halperin and colleagues expected, there was no difference in negative emotions among the participants before training took place. A week after training, however, the reappraisal participants reported lower levels of negative emotions toward Palestinians. The data suggest that the reappraisal actually made them more supportive of conciliatory policies and less supportive of aggressive policies, effects which could be attributed to a decrease in negative emotions.
Even more surprising, however, was the fact that these results held up five months later when the participants were asked to complete a brief questionnaire by an unfamiliar experimenter.
“We consider our findings to be preliminary yet provocative,” write Halperin and colleagues. “Political positions in conflict situations are considered rigid, well entrenched, and driven mainly by ideological rather than emotional considerations. It is therefore surprising to see shifts in these attitudes based on such minimal interventions.”
These results provide evidence that emotion regulation strategies like reappraisal can influence intergroup emotions, not just intrapersonal emotions, and can even shape political reactions.
The researchers believe that this research could eventually lead to interventions that incorporate cognitive reappraisal as a way of increasing support for peace in long-term conflicts.
Study co-authors include Roni Porat of The Hebrew University and Interdisciplinary Center – Herzliya (Israel); Maya Tamir of The Hebrew University (Israel); and James Gross of Stanford University.
###
For more information about this study, please contact: Eran Halperin at eran.halperin@idc.ac.il.
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Can Emotion Regulation Change Political Attitudes in Intractable Conflicts? From the Laboratory to the Field" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.
viernes, 16 de noviembre de 2012
A psychologist with schizophrenia talks about what helps him function effectively
Taken from
the book: “Abnormal Psychology” by David Homes. Harpers Collins. ©1991.
Frederick
J. Frese III is a psychologist who has struggled with schizophrenia for over 20
years. He described the onset of his symptoms and talked about his occasional
“breakdowns”. Most of the time, however, he functions effectively, and in the
following comments he describes some of the things that help. Dr. Frese
believes it is important that the person whit schizophrenia be aware of the
nature of the problem in order to develop effective coping strategies. He said:
Person whit
schizophrenia needs to carefully study how they function. Until they can
identify their deficits, it is very difficult to start building compensatory
mechanisms that will enable them to function better… persons recovering from
schizophrenia should be able to identify, and be on the lookout for, the sorts
of persons, places, and things that can cause the type of stress that may
precipitate their breakdowns. They should know to get to environments that are
helpful.
Just as a
diabetic must take action to control his or her blood-sugar level, persons recovering
from schizophrenia must learn to monitor and take measures to counteract an
imbalance in subcortical neurochemical activity. But unlike diabetes,
schizophrenia seriously interferes with rational processes, and once the
irrationality begins, the person may have great difficulty in acting in a
rational or responsible manner.
To overcome
the irrationality, Dr. Frese also emphasizes the importance of feedback from
others:
Because of
our disability, it is very difficult for us to know what we do that normal do
not understand. Therefore, it is very helpful to have a trustworthy normal
around to let us know what it is about our thoughts that perhaps it would be
better not to share with everyone else. In my case, my wife constantly gives me
feedback whenever I am saying or doing things that normal people may consider
bizarre or offensive. Some things are rather obvious. If you are hearing
voices, it is generally best not to talk back to them while normal are around. If
your thoughts are dominated by the importance of the colors or similar sounds
in the environment, you probably do not want to reveal too much about this to
others.
Whit help,
other disabled persons learn to compensate for their disabilities and frequently
lead dignified, productive lives. The blind learn to use canes and seeing-eye
dogs; those with limited use of their legs learn to use crutches and
wheelchairs. For the mentally ill, however, the parameters of our disability
are often not easily defined. We need help and feedback so we can understand
exactly the nature of our disability.
Whit regard
to the results of psychological testing, Dr. Frese said:
Assessment results
that us we have “gross pathology”, “extreme confusion” or “diffuse brain damage”
are not really helpful. We need very specific information. Perhaps new assessment
instruments need to be developed, possibly with input from us, so that we can
better learn how it is that we are different from others or where our
psychological blind spots are.
Unfortunately,
feedback is not always enough. Sometimes the symptoms overwhelm the person, who
then loses the ability to function. When that occurs, some flexibility on the
part of other people in the environment is necessary. Dr. Frese commented:
Schizophrenia
tends to be an episodic disorder. We are going to have periodic breakdowns. This
makes holding employment very difficult because the usual practice is to
terminate employees who require frequent periods of leave. Work for us should
be structured so that our disabilities are taken into account. Many of us are
well educated and/or have useful skills when we are not having episodes. Why can´t
jobs be structured for us so that our episodic breakdowns do not automatically
result in our loss of employments? As with those in the general population, we
like and needs to be a little more flexible in understanding that we are going
to behave strangely from time and there are going to be time when we do not
function well at all.
"Abnormal Psychology" by David Holmes. Part 4, p. 303. Case study 15.1.
jueves, 9 de agosto de 2012
Brain Abnormalities in Schizophrenia Due to Disease, Not Genetics
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 3, 2012
The brain differences found in people with schizophrenia are mainly the result of the disease itself or its treatment, as opposed to being caused by genetic factors, according to a Dutch study.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that significantly affects cognition and usually contributes to chronic problems with behavior and emotion. Along with a breakdown of thought processes, the disorder is also characterized by poor emotional responsiveness, paranoia, auditory hallucinations and delusions.
People with schizophrenia are likely to have additional conditions, including major depression and anxiety.
The strong familial link of schizophrenia is thought to be as high as 81 percent, and researchers have suggested that schizophrenia-related brain abnormalities may be present in unaffected relatives, a notion that has been supported by several studies.
For the current study, Heleen Boos and a team from University Medical Center Utrecht performed structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) whole-brain scans on 155 patients with schizophrenia, 186 of their non-psychotic siblings, and 122 healthy controls (including 25 sibling pairs).
Researchers used the images to measure volume, cortical thickness and to map the brain anatomy in order to evaluate group differences.
Compared with healthy controls, participants with schizophrenia had strong reductions in total brain, gray matter, and white matter volumes, and significant increases in lateral and third ventricle volumes after taking into account age, gender, intracranial volume, and left or right handedness.
However, there were no significant differences in brain volume between unaffected siblings and healthy controls.
Schizophrenia patients also showed cortical thinning compared with healthy controls, and had decreased gray matter density. Again, this was not found in unaffected siblings and healthy controls.
“Our study did not find structural brain abnormalities in nonpsychotic siblings of patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy control subjects, using multiple imaging methods,” the team says.
“This suggests that the structural brain abnormalities found in patients are most likely related to the illness itself.”
domingo, 1 de julio de 2012
"Si oyes voces y ves visiones..., ¡no estás mal de la cabeza!" - John Read
John Read, psicólogo especialista en abusos sexuales y psicosis.
26/05/2012 por Víctor M. Amela. La Vanguardia.
¿Locura... o sentido?
John Read superó el trauma psicológico de una familia disfuncional y un
abuso sexual en la infancia. Sus vivencias y su curiosidad le llevaron a
investigar la psique humana y a estudiar eso que llamamos locura. Read ha
concluido que lo mejor es tratar amorosamente a pacientes a los que hemos
etiquetado como psicóticos y esquizofrénicos. Y lo argumenta en libros como
Modelos de locura o El sentido de la locura (Herder). Read me pondera el
trabajo en España del doctor Jorge Tizón y su equipo de atención precoz a
pacientes en riesgo de psicosis (con el patronazgo de la Fundació Llegat Roca i
Pi) y me anima a visitar InterVoiceOnline.org. Este Read me ha parecido muy
cuerdo.
¿Qué es la locura?
El término para definir comportamientos inusuales en el seno de una
cultura.
¿La locura... es cultural?
¡Claro! Conozco a fondo la cultura maorí, y sé que en esa cultura no es
síntoma de locura oír voces.
¿No?
Aprenden desde niños que eso encaja en la normalidad..., ¡y nadie se
asusta! Nadie cree que uno esté loco sólo por oír voces...
Aquí sí, aquí te llevan al médico...
Allí entienden que es un ancestro que acude a ayudarte. Lo
agradeces..., ¡y a otra cosa!
Pues si yo oigo voces, ¡sí me espantaré!
Porque te han enseñado que eso es estar mal de la cabeza, enfermo, y te
internarán, tratarán...: vives con ese relato miedoso.
Oír voces, entonces, ¿no es patológico?
Para la especie humana, no es nada raro oír voces y ver visiones: ¡es
parte de nuestra naturaleza! El 15% de la gente oye voces.
No sabía esto, explíquemelo...
Mire, el 80% de las personas mayores de 60 años que ha perdido a su
pareja o a algún ser muy querido... ¡lo oirá o lo verá en algún momento durante
el primer año de duelo!
¡¿Tantas personas?!
Pero preferimos no comentarlo con nadie...
¿Le ha pasado a usted?
Un buen amigo mío se mató en accidente de coche... Lo lamenté tanto...
Al día siguiente se me apareció, vino a despedirse de mí...
¿Hay explicación científica?
Lo primero es aceptar el hecho sin problematizarlo, pues lo que ayuda
no es saber cómo sucede, ¡sino dilucidar qué significa!
¿Y qué significa?
¡Es un mensaje a encajar en la biografía de quien lo vive! Pero el
psiquiatra, en vez de escuchar al paciente..., ¡lo dopa! Debería ver cómo
encaja el mensaje en su relato vital.
¿Lo llamamos locura... y es un mensaje?
Sí. El psiquiatra debe lograr, con humildad, sensibilidad y paciencia,
que el paciente se convierta en autor del relato de su vida...
¿Y no lo hacen así los psiquiatras?
En España, los profesores universitarios de psiquiatría ¡cobran de la
industria farmacéutica! En estas condiciones..., me daría vergüenza ser
psiquiatra en España.
¿En el resto del mundo no es así?
También en Estados Unidos... Y me abochorna que dilapidemos fortunas
buscando el gen de la locura, de la esquizofrenia: ¡no existe! No hay raíz
biológica de la locura.
¿Dónde debemos buscar, pues?
En el propio relato del paciente, insisto. Darle drogas
antipsicóticas... ¡sí es una locura!
¿Tan contraproducentes son?
Perjudican más que benefician, por lo que deberían prohibirse. ¡Acortan
diez años la vida del paciente así medicado!
¿En qué casos sí benefician?
Sólo para tranquilizar al paciente durante una crisis: eso es sólo un
tercio de los casos.
¿Aconsejaría a los pacientes abandonar ahora mismo los antipsicóticos?
¡Que nadie deje a solas la medicación! Es arriesgado. Dialogad con el
psiquiatra y pedidle ayuda para contactar con grupos de terapias mentales sin
fármacos, que los hay.
¿Cómo trata usted a sus pacientes?
Un caso: uno llevaba treinta años medicándose porque se sentía
observado y espiado y quería convertirse en mujer. Me bastaron seis meses
conversando con él para entrar en su lógica y ayudarle a mejorar.
¿Conclusión?
La buena calidad de la relación terapeuta-paciente es lo más curativo
que hay. ¡No existe mejor medicina!
¿Algún consejo para el terapeuta?
Escucha al paciente con paciencia, sin hacerle sentir enfermo mental y
sin juzgarle.
¿Alguna otra evidencia científica sobre lo que llamamos locura y su
tratamiento?
En países africanos, es la propia locura la que cura: los chamanes
provocan brotes psicóticos con drogas, con fines curativos...
¿Con qué resultados?
El dato científico es que dos tercios de los psicóticos se recuperan en
África. Aquí sólo recuperamos a un tercio. ¡Aprendamos!
¿Qué le llevó a aprender psicología?
La necesidad de entenderme a mí mismo.
¿Qué le pasaba?
De los 11 a los 13 años fui víctima de abusos sexuales por parte del
director de mi colegio. No entendía qué estaba pasando y me vengué del mundo
suspendiéndolo todo...
¿Qué efectos tiene un abuso?
Si no se repara, es un trauma psíquico que puede derivar en psicosis y
esquizofrenia.
¿Es muy frecuente el abuso sexual?
En Occidente, el 20% de las niñas y el 15% de los niños padecen abusos
sexuales...
¿Con efectos iguales en niños y niñas?
La niña se aislará de otros niños. El niño abusará psicológicamente de
otros niños.
¿Cómo debemos actuar ante un abuso?
Hay que alejar al abusador. Y preguntar al niño y escucharle. Y hacerle
entender que él no ha actuado mal. Y ayudar a los progenitores inocentes. ¡Y
dar mucho cariño y amor al niño! Si se hace así, se repondrá.
¿Puede pasarle algo peor a un niño?
También es muy traumático chillarle y reñirle y abroncarle
continuamente..., y tanto peor cuanto más joven, porque se dañan más los
reguladores neuronales del estrés.
¿Con qué consecuencias?
Tú dile al niño continuamente que es muy malo o un desastre... y será
fiel a este relato, porque los niños creen íntimamente a sus padres. Y será
malo y será un desastre. Y psicótico, depresivo... y eventual suicida.
domingo, 10 de junio de 2012
Una de cada dos personas con trastorno bipolar no es diagnosticada
Aparece entre los 15 y los 25 años. Es padecida por entre el 2 y el 5 por ciento de la población.
Alrededor del 49 por ciento de las personas que sufren un trastorno bipolar no está diagnosticado y el 31 por ciento de los que conocen esta enfermedad han recibido un tratamiento equivocado de depresión mayor.
Al menos así lo aseguraron varios expertos reunidos en el XI Seminario Lundbeck 'Trastorno Bipolar: El desgobierno de la mente', llevado a cabo en Ibiza (España). Además, según los especialistas presentes en el evento, el 34 por ciento de estas personas ha vivido más de 10 años con síntomas de la enfermedad antes de su diagnóstico.
Y aunque las cifras que entregaron correspondían a España, de acuerdo con los psiquiatras y neurólogos, estas pueden extrapolarse a otras latitudes y es posible que reflejen lo que pasa en países en vías de desarrollo, como Colombia.
Según el psiquiatra Antonio Carlos Toro, coordinador del programa de salud mental del Hospital San Vicente y profesor de la Universidad de Antioquia, "esta enfermedad suele aparecer entre los 15 y los 25 años y se calcula que es padecida por entre el 2 y el 5 por ciento de la población mundial; sin embargo, a nivel local la estadística puede ser menor, pero por simple falta de consulta".
Toro afirma que como este trastorno se caracteriza por dos fases -una depresiva y otra maniaca que es de euforia o exaltación- , y la primera es más común que la segunda, "eso hace que muchas veces el paciente sea tratado como un depresivo y no responda al tratamiento o recaiga porque tiene es trastorno bipolar".
De ahí, el diagnóstico equivocado. Durante el seminario en España, los expertos recordaron que cada vez hay avances más grandes e investigaciones más completas sobre el tratamiento de este trastorno, pero sigue siendo muy difícil diagnosticarlo durante las primeras etapas de la enfermedad.
En concreto, el trastorno bipolar es una enfermedad mental que, con los medios actuales, es perfectamente tratable en la mayor parte de los casos.No afecta a la inteligencia, sino a la regulación de las emociones, y sus causas son una combinación de factores genéticos y ambientales.
Asimismo, su tratamiento es farmacológico y psicoterapéutico. Según la Programa de Trastornos Bipolares del Servicio de Psiquiatría en el Hospital Universitario La Paz de Madrid (España), Consuelo de Dios, "tiende a ser crónica y recurrente, y se puede manifestar con un conjunto de diferentes síntomas psicológicos, conductuales y físicos no siempre fáciles de diagnosticar y tratar.
No obstante, muchos pacientes adecuadamente tratados pueden llevar una vida y unas relaciones normales".
Se estima que el trastorno bipolar puede disminuir la esperanza de vida entre 13 y 30 años. Y, de acuerdo con la especialista De Dios, en esta enfermedad la mortalidad está relacionada con causas no naturales como el suicidio o los accidentes, pero, más aún, con causas naturales, entre las que se cuentan problemas cardiovasculares y endocrino-metabólicos.
"Las enfermedades que con más frecuencia se presentan en el paciente con trastorno bipolar son la obesidad mórbida, la diabetes mellitus y las enfermedades cardiovasculares -le dijo a la prensa de su país tras el evento-. Además, los problemas de abuso de sustancias, incluyendo el alcohol, son mucho más frecuentes en el paciente con trastorno bipolar que en la población general, y esto también conlleva un alto riesgo de morbimortalidad".
* Con información de www.elmundo.es
Scientists Find Truth in "Mad Scientist" Stereotype: There Is a Link between Genius and Insanity
By Christine Hsu. Medical Daylt. June 04, 2012.
Genius and insanity may actually go together, according to scientists who found that mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are often found in highly creative and intelligent people.
The link is being investigated by a group of scientists who had all suffered some form of mental disorder.
Bipolar sufferer Kay Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said that findings of some 20 or 30 scientific studies confirms the idea of the "tortured genius" or "mad scientist".
Jamison said that creativity appears to be significantly linked to mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder. For instance, one 2010 study that tested the intelligence of 700,000 Swedish 16-year-olds found that highly intelligent adolescents were more likely to develop bipolar disorder in a decade-long follow-up.
"They found that people who excelled when they were 16 years old were four times as likely to go on to develop bipolar disorder," Jamison said Thursday night during a panel discussion at New York’s World Science Festival.
Bipolar disorder is a condition in which people have dramatic mood swings between "mania" or extreme happiness and severe depression.
Panelist and researcher James Fallon, a neurobiologist at the University of California-Irvine said that research found that people who suffer bipolar disorder tend to be more creative when they’re coming out of deep depression.
Fallon suggested that when a bipolar patients' mood improves, activity decreases in the lower part of a brain region called the frontal lobe and increases in a higher part of that lobe, a shift that is also seen when people have bouts of creativity.
"There [is] this nexus between these circuits that have to do with bipolar and creativity," Fallon said at the panel.
Elyn Saks, a mental health law professor at the University of Southern California who also developed schizophrenia as a young adult, said that people with psychosis do not filter stimuli as well as others without the disorder, meaning that they're able to ponder contradictory ideas simultaneously and gain insight into loose associations that the general unconscious brain wouldn't even consider worthy of sending to consciousness.
Saks said that while the invasion of nonsense into conscious thought can be overwhelming and disruptive, "it can be quite creative, too."
Studies on word associations that ask participants to list all the words that come to mind in relation to a stimulus word like "tulip" found that bipolar patients experiencing mild mania can generate three times as many word associations in the same amount of time as the general population.
The findings suggest that mania can lead to bouts of genius because the great amount of unsuppressed ideas means a greater probability of producing something original and profound.
Many prodigies like painter Van Gogh, author Jack Kerouac and mathematician John Nash had displayed self-destructive behaviors, and it is unclear as to why humans have evolved this trait.
"The notion of a 'tortured genius' or 'mad scientist' may be more than a romantic aberration," says the World Science Fair. "Research shows that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia correlate with high creativity and intelligence, raising tantalizing questions: What role does environment play in the path to mental illness?"
Scientists wonder whether the mental disorders are being positively selected for in the gene pool, and if there is actually a line between gift and deficit.
Past studies have suggested that much of the link between genius and madness is produced by one particular gene called the DARPP-32, and that three out of four people inherit a version of the DARPP-32 gene, which enhances the brain's ability to think by improving information processing in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
However panelists noted that while society benefits from the productivity of its "tortured geniuses," people who are affected by mental disorders that often lead to bouts of creative energy don’t always consider their moment of brilliance to be worth their suffering.
"I think the creativity is just one part of something that is mostly bad," Saks said.
Published by Medicaldaily.com
lunes, 28 de mayo de 2012
Ritalin use for ADHD children soars fourfold
More youngsters are being prescribed Ritalin for ADHD despite clinical guidelines to the contrary, say child psychologists.
Jamie Doward and Emma Craig. The Observer, May 2012. The Guardian U.K.
Prescriptions of Ritalin for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have quadrupled in a decade, prompting fears it is being pushed on childrenat the expense of alternative treatments and without appreciation of long-term effects.
Figures released by the NHS business services authority to the Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt reveal the number of prescriptions of methylphenidate hydrochloride, the generic name for Ritalin, rose in England from 158,000 in 1999 to 661,463 in 2010.
Ritalin is a psychostimulant drug most commonly approved for treatment of ADHD in children. It is also used to treat conditions such as narcolepsy and in certain cases may also be prescribed for lethargy, depression and obesity.
The Association of Educational Psychologists said its members were reporting an increase in children with behavioural difficulties being prescribed the drug in conjunction with antidepressants, despite the fact there was "little to no evidence about the effect which these cocktails ofdrugs are having on the development of children's brains".
The association claims clinical studies show the "beneficial effects of psychostimulant medication are not sustained over the long term, necessitating stronger and stronger dosages to be prescribed over time" and that it is "becoming a common practice for children to be prescribed stronger dosages than recommended in the morning as a 'top-up' or 'kickstart' dose so that medication lasts the full school day".
Munt, who until recently sat on the education select committee, said there were natural alternatives that could help combat ADHD. She highlighted a report commissioned by the RSPB that suggested activities in a natural environment appear to improve children's symptoms by 30% compared with urban outdoor activities, and threefold compared to playing indoors. But Munt said many young people were prevented from enjoying the outdoors because of reasons such as lack of school playing fields and the distractions posed by video games, smartphones and social networking.
"It is extremely alarming that in the decade up to 2010, prescriptions for Ritalin quadrupled," she said. "Statistics show that 90% of prescriptions for this powerful drug in 2004 were used to combat behavioural problems in school-age children. I am shocked that there has been such a huge explosion in use."
ADHD is believed to affect between 5% and 10% of schoolchildren in the UK. Symptoms include overactive and impulsive behaviour and difficulty paying attention. The increase in Ritalin prescriptions appears to mirror the US where there was an 83% increase in sales of the drug between 2006 and 2010.
How many children are being prescribed the drug is difficult to quantify from official data. Munt said: "Unless the Department of Health collects vital statistical data about prescribing habits, no one will know what is happening.
"We hear teachers tell of their students' lack of ability to concentrate, from police about increasingly disruptive and antisocial behaviour, and from parents unable to control the actions of young family members. We need to show young people how to deal with the normal stresses and strains of growing up. Resorting to powerful drugs only stores up trouble for the future."
The Association of Educational Psychologists said it believed guidelines were not being followed. The guidelines recommend that ADHD medication should not be prescribed to pre-school children for the long term.nor in isolation from other therapeutic interventions, without consultation But the association said it was aware of a substantial increase in the number of children aged under six, and in some cases as young as three, being prescribed ADHD drugs. It said an informal survey of educational psychology practitioners across the West Midlands had revealed there were more than 100 children under six on the medication in the area. "This is reaffirmed across the country by our members," the association said.
viernes, 18 de mayo de 2012
Espacio y Movimiento de la Locura: El péndulo de la Historia (Chile)
Por: Alfredo Roca.
Medico Psiquiatra, Universidad de Chile.
Doctor en Medicina, Universidad Libre de Bruselas, Bélgica. Epidemiología.
Universidad Católica de Lovaina, Bélgica. Profesor de la Universidad de Playa
Ancha y Profesor asociado de la Universidad de Valparaíso. E-mail: aroca@upa.cl
Este artículo se referirá al espacio social de la locura y a sus movimientos,
en Chile, desde la Colonia hasta el siglo XXI. Intentaremos en lo que sigue,
referirnos a la psiquiatría en Chile, teniendo en cuenta el movimiento
desarrollado en el tiempo largo, “la longue durée”. Esto nos permitirá observar
los movimientos en la historia de la locura, en los últimos siglos. Por otra
parte, abordaremos la locura desde su propio movimiento (intrínseco) en los
espacios que se le asignan. Decimos
espacios, porque ellos son múltiples, pero los diferenciaremos en espacio
interno, intramuros o institucional y espacio externo o extramuros.
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