A new study suggests bipolar and schizophrenia should be classified as the same diseases. Australian psychiatrists are alarmed as they fear doing this could affect the way sufferers are treated.

Doesn’t it seem all too often that people are trying to lump mental illness under one common diagnosis or even a small handful?

There are hundreds of types of cancers, why is it so difficult to grasp the idea that there just might be just as many types of mental illnesses that should be handled very differently others?

I’m no expert by any stretch, but I would think classifying these two very different illnesses as the same could be dangerous – and that’s not rocket science.

Source: Radio Australia.net.au

Post from: Blisstree

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may be the same disease

Well, this is an interesting new take on suicide prevention.

According to Byron L. Lam, M.D. of Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami School of Medicine, and his colleagues, “improved treatments of visual impairment and factors causing poor health could potentially reduce suicide risk.”

This news comes to me via Science Daily article Visual Impairment May Be Associated With Higher Suicide Risk, but the findings came to Lam and colleagues after a study (supported by grants from the National Eye Institute and the National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health) that reviewed data from national health surveys taken between the years of 1986 and 1996 by 137,479 participants.

Of course, Lam and colleagues aren’t suggesting that eye glasses alone will help with suicide prevention, but that the treatment of vision problems and other factors causing poor health could help decrease suicide risk.

Good day to buy stock in Bausch & Lomb?

Image: morgueFile

Post from: Blisstree

Could Spectacles Reduce Suicide Risk?

During Celebrity Health Week, I wrote two posts about schizophrenia: Celebrities and Schizophrenia and Tell Me More about Schizophrenia: Signs, Symptoms, and Treatments.

However, had I known about NAMI’s Schizophrenia: Public Attitudes, Personal Needs Web site I would have definitely included it.

The Web site:

• Gives a summary of the schizophrenia survey. For example, did you know an average time period of eight and a half years passes between the time a person’s schizophrenia symptoms first surface until the time the person first receives schizophrenia treatment? You can also see the methodology of the survey.
• Provides an analysis section, broken down into three parts designed to help explain schizophrenia in easy-to-understand terms: Living with Schizophrenia, Public Attitudes, and Caregiver Experiences and Challenges.
• Lists six recommendations to help improve attitudes about schizophrenia and meet the needs of people with schizophrenia.
• Dedicates a section to highlighting schizophrenia in the media.
• Offers an online quiz about schizophrenia. The quiz includes seven questions, and provides explanations after each answer.

You can peruse through these sections, or download the whole report. Either way, I think this is a well-organized and easily translated break down of schizophrenia.

Give it a look and let me know what you think. Did you learn anything from it? Do you think it could be simpler or should be more in depth? Would you pass it on to others to help them learn more about schizophrenia?

Image: Newscom

This post is part of the Mental Health Notes series. If you have a mental illness and are still living the life you love, head on over to This Is Why I ROCK! and enter!

Post from: Blisstree

NAMI Presents Schizophrenia: Public Attitudes, Personal Needs

I keep no secrets about my love affair with coffee; however, I know lots of folks steer clear of coffee because of the negative mental and physical effects it has on them such as making them nervous, jittery, unable to sleep, speeding up their heart rates, and in some cases even causing convulsions and delirium.

I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was…hmm…almost 20 years old, I believe, but I like to think in the last six years I’ve become quite seasoned. I know what brands I like and don’t like, I know the store chains with which I can trust my coffee addiction, and I know that while they’re pretty and do a lot of neat things, a fancy-shmancy coffee maker doesn’t really make a better tasting cup of joe than my $12 set up from Wal-Mart.

And, like most people, I also know how much coffee my brain and body can handle.

If the amount of coffee your brain and body can handle is very little – or zilch – you may still want to venture down the coffee aisle during your next grocery store run. According to studies conducted by an international group of researchers, just the aroma of coffee “orchestrates the expression of more than a dozen genes and some changes in protein expressions, in ways that help reduce the stress of sleep deprivation.”

Of course, Han-Seok Seo, one of the researchers, notes that this is the first study to deal with coffee aromas and the brain, and it is being conducted on rats, but, still – I always tend to feel a bit more alert when I get a whiff of fresh brewing coffee.

I doubt many folks will run out and buy coffee makers and cans of coffee just for the brain-boosting effects of the aroma, but…do I see a market for coffee incense? Room spray? Those little smell-good-hang-down-things for the rear view mirrors of cars?

Haha.

Image: Newscom

If you have a mental illness and are still living the life you love, head on over the the This Is Why I ROCK! and enter!

Post from: Blisstree

Wake Up Your Brain With Coffee Aroma