Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Mental Health Counseling Week and Disability

Excerpt from: Atlantic Highlands Herald (click for full article)

 

Besides having penned this newspaper column about disability since 2002, I'm also a licensed professional counselor and national certified counselor.

Recently, the American Mental Health Counselors Association (AMHCA) sent an email to its membership declaring May 6-12 as "Mental Health Counseling Week" and urging all AMHCA members to "set aside time during (the week) to participate in local activities to promote and reinforce the importance of mental health."

So today I'm tossing in my two cents. A disproportional percentage of people with disabilities also have a mental illness.

Overall, America is becoming more "disabled" as its population skews older and medical science becomes more skilled at preserving the lives of people with medical issues. The number of people claiming disability benefits is skyrocketing. The federal government generally determines a person has a disability when that person has a significant impairment in any major life function, such as walking, seeing or thinking.

Ask Amy: Daughter refuses to be with bipolar brother

Excerpt from: Washington Post (click for full article)

 

Mental illness is both stigmatized and misunderstood. Your son should discuss this with his therapist to explore ways he can be a more active participant in this process. Perhaps this therapist would meet with you and with your daughter (separately or together).

In the meantime, you will have to respect the fact that she is the child’s mother and has to make judgments about who the girl spends time with. Her motivations might be mixed, but you have to accept her choice.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness offers a wealth of information on bipolar illness at nami.org.

Report of Nevada State Mental Hospital Putting Residents on Greyhound Buses and Sending Them to Other States Without Services

Excerpt from: Disability Law (click for full article)

Patti's comment: This makes me physically ill!!

 

A Nevada state mental hospital's practice of discharging psychiatric patients to Greyhound buses and transporting them to cities and towns across the country is under investigation by the independent, nonprofit body that accredits hospitals nationwide. 

In addition, city attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles are exploring whether the practice constitutes a form of cross-state "patient dumping," and might be grounds for legal action against Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital and Nevada health authorities. 

The responses follow a report in Sunday's Sacramento Bee that revealed that Rawson-Neal, Nevada's primary psychiatric hospital, has bused more than 1,500 mentally ill patients out of southern Nevada in the last five years, sending at least one person to every state in the continental United States. About one-third of those patients were shipped to California, including more than 200 to Los Angeles County, 36 to San Francisco and 19 to the city of Sacramento, according to a review of Greyhound bus receipts purchased since July 2008 by Nevada's mental health division.

DSM-V: Hoarding, Binge Eating & More New Mental-Disorder Diagnoses

Excerpt from: The Daily Beast (click for full article)

 

The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders hits shelves on May 22, and with it, a slew of new mental-disorder diagnoses. Advocates of the DSM-V say recognition of new disorders like hoarding and skin picking will lead to more accessible treatment and greater understanding of these conditions in the psychiatric world. But others say the new diagnoses will only fuel a pharmaceutical industry that already overprescribes, with more than 10 percent of American adults taking antidepressants. From Internet addiction to binge eating, six additions to the “bible” of psychiatry.

The Most Common Misdiagnoses in Children

Excerpt from: Child Mind Institute (click for full article)

 

Here we take a look at some of the common psychiatric symptoms that are easily misinterpreted in children and teenagers, leading to misdiagnosis. For each symptom, we explain the diagnosis it is commonly linked to, and what some of the alternate causes for what that behavior might be. (This list is only meant to be used as a guide, and it is important to always consult with a trained diagnostician before beginning treatment or assigning a label to your child.)

1. Inattention

The common diagnosis: ADHD

Other Possibilities:

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Learning Disorder

Study: Google Searches Reveal Mental Health Patterns

Excerpt from: The Atlantic (click for full article)

 

PROBLEM: Google overhyped the flu this year, which seemed to be a blow to the company's claim that it can track disease in real-time. Not to mention, the CDC was doing a fine job monitoring the virus's spread without the help of Google's search-based analysis. Traditional epidemiological surveillance techniques are less reliable, though, when it comes to mental illness, which remains complex and stigmatized enough that there's reason to believe people may be more comfortable consulting the Internet than their doctors.

RESULTS: In the U.S., inquiries about mental health dropped by 14 percent from winter to summer. The seasonal differences, for major mental illnesses, were as follows:

• Eating disorders: 37% 
• Schizophrenia: 37%
• Bipolar: 16%
• ADHD: 28%
• OCD: 18%
• Suicide: 24%
• Anxiety: 7%

Similar drops were seen in the Australian dataset. In fact, peaks and troughs in search volume between the two countries closely reflected one another -- while Americans enjoyed the decline in mental illness that appeared to come with lengthening days and warmer weather, the Australian winter signaled a rise in the very same:

Stressed Out? Connecting Stress to Mental Illness!

Excerpt from: Healthy Place (click for full article)

 

Receiving the diagnosis of mental illness is frightening and the process we take to recover can feel impossible. Add in a little–or a lot–of stress and what feels impossible can become impossible. This is why it`s important to recognize the difference between stress and possible relapse.

Self-care is an invaluable tool when it comes to understanding and relieving stress. The simple things like exercising, eating well, and working to adhere to a schedule allow us to work through the tough parts in life.

When you do experience a life change or symptoms of stress, even if they are not intruding upon your life, it’s worth it to visit your psychiatrist. This is part of self-care.

Try to remember that stress can be healthy; stress is a symptom of change and change is normal. Without change, the world would be a boring place—without change we would not grow as individuals. Work to embrace change, change makes us human, and it makes life interesting.

Mental Illness and Vulnerability

Excerpt from: The New York Times (click for full article)

 

Compared with the rest of the population, people with mental illness may be at sharply increased risk of dying by homicide, a new study has found.

Researchers used Swedish government registries to determine psychiatric diagnoses and causes of death among the entire adult population of 7.2 million from 2001 to 2008. There were 615 murders in the period, 141 of them of people with mental disorders. (The homicide rate in Sweden is about one-fifth that of the United States.)

After controlling for age, education level, income and other factors, they found that people with mental illness were almost five times as likely to be a victim of murder as a person without a psychiatric diagnosis. The study appeared online last week in the journal BMJ.

The risk was highest among those with substance use disorders — nine times that of the general population. Those with personality disorders had three times the risk, people with depression two and a half times, and those with anxiety or schizophrenia about twice the risk of being murdered, compared with people without mental illness.

REGULATORY AND FUNDING PARAMETERS FOR PEER SPECIALISTS IN SUPPORTING EMPLOYMENT

Excerpt from: The Temple University Collaborative (click for full article)

 

The purpose of this paper is to encourage and strengthen the role that peer specialists in Pennsylvania can play in supporting the competitive employment goals of individuals who have a serious mental illness, while at the same time ensuring that employment supports are provided in a manner consistent with regulatory and funding guidelines. Since the majority of peer specialists in Pennsylvania are funded through Pennsylvania’s approved Medicaid rehabilitation option and provided through Health Choices, Pennsylvania’s Medicaid funded managed care program, it is critical that employment related services are provided and documented within Medicaid funding and regulatory guidelines.

Letter to House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Mental Health, Lack of Representation of People with Psychiatric Disabilities at Roundtable

Excerpt from: National Council on Disability (click for full article)

 

Just prior to last Tuesday’s Subcommittee roundtable, “After Newtown: A National Conversation on Violence and Severe Mental Illness,” large numbers of people with personal experience with psychiatric disabilities contacted NCD to express concern about the exclusion of persons with first-hand lived experience with psychiatric disability. NCD contacted majority and minority staff of the Subcommittee, flagged the concern, and offered to provide suggestions of local individuals who could add this critical perspective to the discussion, and who were willing to clear their schedules to ensure their availability. Unfortunately, NCD was informed that the list of participants was considered final, although our insights would be taken into consideration in the future. NCD renews its offer to assist in this manner and continues to emphasize the importance of including people with psychiatric disabilities in any and all conversations about people with psychiatric disabilities.