On A Meaningful Life

NYTimes discusses the turf war over regulating psychoanalysis in England.

Postpartum depression resources Via Wall Street Journal, some resources for the postpartum mom: Post-Partum.net , resources, support group info Your Medical Source , tips for husbands, partners and friends of moms

New Alzheimer's data Annals of Internal Medicine just came out with a study , as summarized here: The study, published in the April 6 issue of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, included these key findings: • People newly diagnosed with AD survived about half as long as those of similar age in the United States. For instance, median survival was 8 years for women aged 70 diagnosed with AD, compared to 15.7 years for similarly aged American women who do not have the disease. Similar trends were found among 70-year-old men with AD. They had a median survival time of 4.4 years compared with 9.3 years for men without the disease in the U.S. population. • Women with AD tended to live longer than men, surviving an average of 6 years compared to men — who lived for an average of about 4 years after diagnosis. But this gender gap narrowed with age. • Age at diagnosis was also a factor. Those who were diagnosed with AD in their 70s had longer survival times than those diagnosed at ag...

Hello, Lupus Newslog Library! Adding a new blog with lots of lupus related links.

Taming Stress One of my favorite biology writers, Robert Sapolsky, discusses the biology behind stress. While it's a bit lengthy, I think it would be useful for those who need to review psychopharmacology.

Genetic Clues Connect Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disease New research suggests that the AKT1 pathway is involved in both schizophrenia and bipolar disease. Keep in mind that there are probably many other factors involved in these two diseases. Still I think this is fascinating. More info to be found in the source report: Nature Genetics, February 2004, Gogos et al.

"Baby Steps..." Psychology Today has a bit on how to be perfect. While I'm sure they are being a bit facetious, I thought their pointers were useful reminders. • Break down the behavior into its component parts. Say you want to get more exercise, and you want to do it by running two miles every day before work. So you need to get up an hour earlier than usual (more if you’re slow to start), throw on your running clothes, drink a couple of glasses of water, take your Walkman, do some warm-up exercises, go out and run, do a few minutes of cool-down exercises, shower, dress, prepare breakfast, eat, leave for work. • Examine the consequences of both changing your behavior and maintaining the status quo. Change is frightening, and fears of the unknown make us cling to old behaviors despite our best intentions. • Build in as much positive reinforcement as you can. For example, plot the most attractive running route you can, one that takes you by some scenic spots. And w...

Determining When Someone Should No Longer Drive This is certainly a hot topic, in the wake of Santa Monica's Farmers' Market tragedy. APA provides a brief summary of a meta-analysis published in Neuropsychology looking at ways to assess 'driveability' in those with early stage Alzheimer's. Tests of visuospatial skills generally related best to driving abilities. They may be most helpful in identifying at-risk drivers, especially as visuospatial deficits are common in early Alzheimer’s and other dementias. The authors conclude that, “Although visuospatial deficits alone are not sufficient to recommend driving restrictions, the results indicate that when visuospatial deficits are present, clinicians should complete a careful evaluation of other risk factors.” They are a red flag to look for other problems. Reger et al. were surprised to see that attention and concentration tests may be less helpful than some other tests of functioning. Their effect sizes were si...

Women's Health Issues in the News: Cardiovascular Disease Glad to see more attention paid to women's health issues in the news. This report highlights how women are more susceptible to stroke than men. It seems women over 55 need to worry more about having a stroke than their male counterparts do. They have a one-in-five chance of suffering a stroke during their lifetime, while the odds are one-in-six for men in the same age group, a new analysis shows. It's the first time researchers have quantified the lifetime risk of stroke among men and women in the United States. "It gives you an idea of the magnitude of the problem," says study author Dr. Sudha Seshadri, an assistant professor of neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine. "We did not know that before for stroke, surprising as that may seem." Heart disease in women is yet another topic that requires more attention. The bad news is that heart disease is the No. 1 killer of ...

Decoding Schizophrenia Scientific American provides an overview of schizophrenia incorporating the most recent discoveries in brain imaging and in neurobiology. The hope is that increased understanding of how signalling works in the brain will improve pharmacotherapy options.

The Disability Gulag NY Times magazine features a superb first person account by a lawyer who also just happens to have a physical disability. Harriet McBryde Johnson's article falls in the required reading category. What she calls "The Gulag" has relevance for all of us. It's difficult to think about these things, but most of us have parents who will age, not to mention that we all will age one day.

Mild Cognitive Impairment: Risk Factors I'm linking to this post about Risk Factors for Mild Cognitive Impairment over at Psychscape . Mild cognitive impairment was associated with race (African American), low educational level, low Modified Mini-Mental State Examination and Digit Symbol Test scores, cortical atrophy, MRI-identified infarcts, and measurements of depression. The MCI amnestic-type was associated with MRI-identified infarcts, the presence of the APOE 4 allele, and low Modified Mini-Mental State Examination scores. The study's primary author pointed out that it is important to note that African Americans have more cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular disease risk factors than whites, which may explain the increased prevalence of MCI in this group of subjects. The consistently excellent Psychscape is written by the Psychiatry Editor for Medscape and should be a regular stop for mental health professionals.

Delirium in the LA Times LA Times covers this under diagnosed medical problem this week in the Health section (requires free registration to view; need to view in the next week because it will be archived). Interventions include the following: In a March 1999 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Inouye showed that several simple changes reduced delirium by 40% among 852 hospitalized, non-ICU patients 70 and older. For example, the program reduced the use of sleeping pills by having volunteers provide back rubs, relaxation tapes, warm milk and tea. Other interventions included providing cognitive stimulation through games, discussion of current events and memory aids designed to jog recollections; by helping get patients out of bed and walking three times daily; by improving surroundings to minimize sleep disruptions, and by giving enough fluids to prevent dehydration.

Stress, Health and the Urban Environment Here is another New York Times Magazine article, "Enough To Make You Sick" by Helen Epstein. While I know there is a larger political context to this story, I think that the writer makes it clear how intertwined the influence of an urban environment is on one's health. Her writeup at the end about a program placing people from poor urban environments to a middle class environment is interesting. Followup of this group would be important. Please catch this article before it goes into the archives.

The Minimally Conscious State No, it's not a new term for not enough sleep. This New York Times Magazine article, titled "What if There is Something Going On in There?" by Carl Zimmer, explores "a new category of consciousness: the minimally conscious state". New PET evidence that some individuals with traumatic brain injuries previously considered "vegetative' exhibited significant levels of brain activity. Zimmer explores some of the issues involved including ethical and practical policies. Caution: this article requires free registration for viewing. Unfortunately, it's necessary to catch this article before next week, when it goes into the archives.

Given that this blog had the same title as a wonderful book written by Jack Kornfield, in deference to his book I changed the blog title. This URL, however, remains the same. His book is entitled A Path With Heart: A Guide Through The Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life .

In Psychology Today online, a quick easy to read review about bipolar affective disorder and treatment options, especially new approaches is found here .

New Insight On How Lithium Works BioMedNet News (warning: requires registration), in the News Archives July 31, 2003, has a summary of exciting new British research throwing fresh light on how mood stabilizers used in treatment of bipolar affective disorder affects cellular pathways. (Article is entitled: “Slime Mould Gets Moody” by Laura Spinney). Although the organism in the spotlight is Dictyostelium discoideum , the slime mold, the pathways being studied are present in both mammals and slime mold. Adrian Harwood and his lab at the Medical Research Council Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology of the University College London have been focusing on the inositide signaling pathway and the Wnt-signaling pathway in slime mold. The most important implication of this work is stated here: "…Their latest findings add more detail to the picture, indicating that lithium and valproic acid exert their effects at different stages of the inositide-signaling pathway. "Dictyo...

Hypnosis in the Scientific American Scientific American online has an easy to read review of hypnosis here . My only disappointment: where are those references? With so many interesting results cited, I’d like to see the sources. And a quick neuropsychology refresher: which part of the brain is activated under hypnosis? According to this article, the answer is this: “…The tests showed that a region of the brain called the right anterior cingulate cortex was just as active while the volunteers were hallucinating as it was while they were actually hearing the stimulus. In contrast, that brain area was not active while the subjects were imagining that they heard the stimulus. Somehow hypnosis had tricked this area of the brain into registering the hallucinated voice as real...”

Knowing A Wee Bit More About How Cancer Works New Scientist writes about recent research published in Clinical Cancer Research. By interfering with how a specific type of protein attaches to another protein, a team of scientists at UCSF and the University of Lund noted slower growth of tumors as well as fewer tumors overall in mice. Although this is a long ways away from an actual cure to be used in people, it seems as though this is an important piece of information about how cancer cells may grow and proliferate. (Note: The title of the New Scientist article was, I thought, a bit misleading).