Mental and Physical Health

[Sci-2]

eta: better title for thread

Was informing people via PM, but a new thread is probably more efficient:

Started a collection of health resources here, many of them I saved from previous work stuff. An old job I had dealt with special needs [and 911] registries, so I put that in at the top since it could benefit just about anybody, especially right now. It allows EMTs to know your info before an emergency/disaster happens, so good for people with disabilities or who take multiple medications.

Besides the national Smart911 service most are by state/town/county, but there's one for DC and its surrounding area in there. Working on getting my relatives and friends to join their registries as well.

The other topics came from the mental health thread, and various issues I was involved with at some point or another. Figured it might prove useful to someone out there. The topics are:

I. Special Needs, Disabled Adults and Children

II. Mental Health - free/cheap care, hotlines, online support groups

III. Youth and Adult Homelessness

IV. Legal Assistance - legal aid

V. Insurance Assistance - mainly for kids

VI. Prescription Assistance - kids and adults

VII. Emergency Preparedness

VIII. Veterans' Health

So if you have anything to add just post it here and I'll add it. While I don't want to go too crazy, I was thinking of making a page for each state if there are lots of local resources and if it could prove useful.

thanks and please share with those who might benefit,

Sci

[Sci-2]

On prescription assistance, there's the main site http://www.pparx.org/.

If you add your state's initials at the end, there should be a site specific to the state like http://www.pparxwi.org/ is for Wisconsin.

eta: fixed last link.

[Sci-2]

Made one for Alabama on the topics mentioned in the OP. Sparse, so more resources welcome.

[Sci-2]

Thought this was cool:

Therapy Place looks to expand unique program for special needs children

The goal of Bridges is to unite therapy and school for special needs children ages two through five. "We are bridging the gap between early intervention services which are zero to three and then school environments," said Erin Bellinger, the Director of Bridges.

Directors say this age group often falls into a gap where they can get lost in a traditional daycare or pre-school setting. "If they were just in a daycare or in a pre-school, they don't always have the right knowledge or equipment or training to be able to handle children like this," said Bellinger.

Bellinger adds therapy for a special needs child has traditionally been separate from their schooling, but she says Bridges brings it all together.

I think this relates to some of our past discussions about making mental health care more pervasive, and a prior article about the significance of early intervention [link]. Not to mention that I personally think identification of things like anxiety or even just the acceptability of therapy would be good.

I know I had an aversion to what I thought was over-medication of friends who were identified as ADHD. Wish I could go back and smack a bit of sense into young me!

Also, resource page for California.

[Sci-2]

You have to scroll down due to someone pasting in code but:

Grant opportunities available for special needs families

[WillWork4NinjaPowers]

Thanks!

[Sci-2]

Some info on financial assistance for parents of CSHCN:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5303697_government-grants-children-special-needs.html

http://www.hannahshopefund.org/files/1513/4206/3270/grant_sources_2011.pdf

Thanks!

No problem, came across a lot of this during work hours anyway. Probably need a website to make it all easier to navigate.

[Sci-2]

A New Way to Care for Young Brains

BOSTON — The drumbeat of alarming stories linking concussions among football players and other athletes to brain disease has led to a new and mushrooming American phenomenon: the specialized youth sports concussion clinic, which one day may be as common as a mall at the edge of town.

I'm curious, are there similar issues with concussions with among players of Rugby?

[Guest Raidne]

Hey, how about a list of top-notch mental health providers specializing in the treatment of ADD in the Washington DC metro area - who accept BCBS? ;)

That's my real problem - how do you find out who is any good?

On the other hand, the good thing about finding mental health care is that it's easy to get relationships going before you find yourself in some kind of crisis. With medical doctors, often, people aren't really looking until there is an acute need. And even then, who has an existing relationship with an orthopedic surgeon or an oncologist - just in case? Right? But in the event that you fracture your spine or get a cancer diagnosis, well, those are probably the very last instances where you want to be making any rushed decisions about your health care, no?

[Guest Raidne]

What you describe is pretty consistent with my own experience, yeah. Actually, in some ways it's creepy similar - I have asthma and was prescribed Ativan. Big no no.

Big changes for ADD with the DSM-V, by the way - really good ones. Apparently we're going to stop considering it a childhood disorder. Minimum age for onset of symptoms will be 16. We're going to stop thinking of hyperactivity as part of the disorder. Data shows that it is really about (1) cognitive inflexibility, (2) disinhibition, and (3) executive dysfunction. Oh, you don't say?

Here is the article on it from the Attention Deficit Disorder Association: http://www.add.org/?page=DSM5. Incidentally, this is the best resource I've ever found on ADD.

[Sci-2]

fMRI may predict treatment response in social anxiety disorder

Brain activation measured by neuroimaging provided a biomarker which predicted response to behavioral therapy in patients diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, according to a study published online Sept. 3 in Archives of General Psychiatry .

Although social anxiety disorder is a common psychiatric condition in the U.S., both primary treatment options—cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and pharmacotherapy—only are moderately effective.

No reliable predictor of treatment response has been identified.

Neuroimaging might indicate patient variation and better predict treatment outcome, according to Oliver Doehrmann, PhD, of the department of brain and cognitive sciences at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues.

[Guest Raidne]

Everything I've read would indicate the opposite, if anything. I'd go with the latter. It's happening to me too.

[Guest Raidne]

Wouldn't that be, you know, good news, though? I understand, it's not to me either, but why on earth would I want to believe it's me that's getting worse and not my environment? Isn't the latter a lot more manageable? But I haven't the faintest idea where to start either. I know simplification and routine should be the goal.

[Guest Raidne]

I hear you. I now live in a house that my husband and I purchased that is a pretty substantial commute from my office. This was not, in retrospect, a good decision given the nature of my issues, because it complicates a lot of day to day things. For awhile, I was in a pretty defeatist mood about this, but I'm pulling out of it. Yes, change is bad for me, but my new situation can be accommodated better than I thought at first, and it has its advantages. I mostly just need to establish new routines and offload what I can onto paid and automatic services. And in some cases, the people in your life who may be affected can be asked to accommodate some forgetfulness, lateness, etc. People can be more understanding than you would expect.

Having to take a big picture look at how everything in my life functions (or doesn't, really) is seriously daunting task, but if I can expend that initial effort and get something workable going, I think it will be worth it.

[Sci-2]

https://www.healthcarebluebook.com/

The Healthcare Blue Book is a free consumer guide to help you determine fair prices in your area for healthcare services. If you pay for your own healthcare, have a high deductible or need a service your insurance does not fully cover, we can help. The Blue Book will help you find fair prices for surgery, hospital stays, doctor visits, medical tests and much more.

[Sci-2]

How Will the New Definition of Autism in DSM-5 Affect Children? Parents, Advocates Anxious Over Changes.

It was the start of a long road that would lead Dylan, now 14, to be first diagnosed with autism, and, later, with childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD), a much more rare form of autism, marked by a severe loss of social and communication skills. And while the shift in diagnosis did not make a major impact on Dylan’s course of treatment, Covell is now worried about future research into CDD because of one basic fact: The disorder is being removed as a diagnosis in the forthcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM, due out this month. Published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), it is the bible of mental-health disorders, used to diagnose mental illnesses, and the new edition represents the first major rewrite in 20 years.

“For those who fall outside of a ‘classic’ autism diagnosis, like Dylan, the change in the definition will have a definite and serious impact on research,” said Covell (whose fear is shared by experts, including the director of the Yale Child Study Center, autism expert Fred Volkmar). “Without the specific diagnosis of CDD, researchers will be hard-pressed to get funding for studies into this particular form.” And that, she added, “would end any hope” of solving the mystery of CDD, for which there is no known cause or cure.

[Sci-2]

The Lethality of Loneliness: We now know how it can ravage our body and brain

Among analysts, Fromm-Reichmann, who had come to the United States from Germany to escape Hitler, was known for insisting that no patient was too sick to be healed through trust and intimacy. She figured that loneliness lay at the heart of nearly all mental illness and that the lonely person was just about the most terrifying spectacle in the world. She once chastised her fellow therapists for withdrawing from emotionally unreachable patients rather than risk being contaminated by them.

The uncanny specter of loneliness “touches on our own possibility of loneliness,” she said. “We evade it and feel guilty.”

[Sci-2]

Could a virtual therapist really help with your personal problems?

Those familiar with ELIZA will immediately recognize Ellie as the latest in a decades-long string of chat bots designed to engage in surprisingly human interactions – including person-centered psychotherapy. What makes Ellie different is her physical manifestation, and her ability to not just mirror her conversation partner's words and body language, but analyze and react to that information in a way that encourages people to continue talking; in this sense, Ellie has better social skills than a lot of people we know.

We anxiously await the video of two Ellie bots psychoanalyzing one another.

[karaddin]

Saw this linked on my facebook this morning and thought of you and your thread Sci

Does prozac help artists be creative

This is not the essay in which to debate in depth the efficacy of SSRIs. Irving Kirsch claims – to my mind convincingly – in The Emperor's New Drugs that their benefits have been substantially overstated. What is clear is that their side-effects have not. Apart from stifling the libido, SSRI use has consequences that are particularly significant for artists. A 2009 study by Oxford University, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that those taking SSRIs reported "a general reduction in the intensity of the emotions that they experienced". They described themselves as feeling "dulled", "numbed", "flattened", or "blocked". If poetry is (as Wordsworth claimed) "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings… emotion recollected in tranquillity", then could Prozac bring artists too little feeling, too much tranquillity?

[Guest Raidne]

If neurotransmitters and pharmacology tell us anything, it is, apparently, that there is far from one kind of happiness. This will, even as an illustration of that point, still be overly simplistic, but too little seratonin is associated with a lack of contentment, too little oxytocin inhibits emotive empathy and tenderness, too little dopamine handicaps drive and self-efficacy, and so on.

Consequently, trying to hit depression over the head with a sledgehammer of seratonin as the first line response seems a bit heavy-handed and misguided, acknowledging that plenty of psychiatrists do take a more informed approach to treatment of symptoms of depression.