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Tag: mental health treatment

  • Amanda Bynes Returns To Inpatient Treatment After College Graduation

    Amanda Bynes Returns To Inpatient Treatment After College Graduation

    Bynes has been working on developing a career in fashion since she retired from acting in 2010.

    Amanda Bynes is currently still living in an inpatient care facility for her mental health as she’s taking the next steps in her life and career, an unnamed source told People.

    In late June, the actress and fashion designer walked in her graduation ceremony from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising before returning to the facility.

    “Amanda is still inpatient in a mental health facility,” said a friend of Bynes. “She was able to get an outing pass for a few hours for the special occasion so she could walk with the other students. But she left a little early and was back at the facility at the end of the graduation.”

    Bynes has struggled with mental illness and addiction for several years.

    In 2012, she was charged with a DUI, though the charge was dropped two years later. In 2013, she was put under a 72-hour mental-health evaluation hold in a mental health facility after she allegedly started a small fire in a stranger’s driveway. Since then, her parents have repeatedly filed for and been granted conservatorship over Bynes due to her illness.

    In 2018, Bynes publicly announced that she had been sober for four years after struggling with substance use disorder, particularly with Adderall.

    Getting Help

    In addition to working on getting sober and improving her mental health, Bynes has been working on developing a career in fashion since she retired from acting in 2010. She enrolled at the Fashion Institute in 2014 and received her associate’s degree in Merchandise Product Development last year, and her bachelor’s this year.

    Earlier this year, the Bynes family attorney Tamar Arminak told People that Amanda has been doing well in the inpatient program.

    “Amanda is doing great, working on herself, and taking some well-deserved time off to focus on her wellbeing after graduating FIDM in December,” he said. “She’s spending time reading and exercising, sketching for her new line and mostly making sure this time around she puts her needs first.”

    A Rare Photo

    Bynes even posted a rare photo of herself on her Twitter account—one of only 11 tweets on an account that has nearly three million followers. The photo shows her posing in cap and gown with a friend dressed in a leopard print vest and tie.

    FIDM graduate 2019 #fidmgraduation pic.twitter.com/KdFI5dPOdK

    — amanda bynes (@amandabynes) June 25, 2019

    Amanda unfortunately suffered a relapse in March after she attempted to return to acting. She has had difficulties in the past with seeing herself on screen and hating how she looked. 

    “I literally couldn’t stand my appearance in that movie and I didn’t like my performance. I was absolutely convinced I needed to stop acting after seeing it,” she said of her 2010 movie Easy A.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Texas College Aims To Help Every Student With Mental Health, Trauma

    Texas College Aims To Help Every Student With Mental Health, Trauma

    Paul Quinn College is taking a progressive approach to mental health that leaves no student behind. 

    With stress, anxiety and depression a common struggle among college students, there is more focus now on mental health in higher education than ever before. Now Paul Quinn College in Texas is working hard to make sure that their students have their mental health needs covered.

    As Dallas News reports, every student who comes into Paul Quinn College is encouraged to meet with a counselor for a mental health assessment, and the school has a free mental health clinic that students can visit as well.

    Dr. Stacia Alexander is the director of Paul Quinn’s mental health clinic, and she tells new students at the school, “We’re here for you. For whatever feelings you struggle with—with whatever you hide from everybody else that you think means nothing, that you think makes you out of your mind. We are here to talk to you about these feelings.”

    Setting Students Up For Success

    Paul Quinn College often takes in a lot of students who come from underprivileged backgrounds and are trying to find their place in the world. Several years back, the school’s president, Michael Sorrell, tried to figure out why the school’s graduation rate was so low. “It took us a while to understand that that was a product of trauma,” Sorrell says.

    The first years of college can be especially stressful. You’re on your own for the first time, you want to succeed, and it can be hard to balance your scholastic, professional and personal workload.

    Dr. Jessica Moore, a mental health professional who works at Paul Quinn, recalled that the subject of mental health didn’t come up much when she was in college. But today, “the students are good at letting us know the things that they need. They are quick to say, ‘OK, we need to talk about trauma or peer relationships or stress management.’ And then we all work on an event or program to address that.”

    Dr. Alexander has freely given out her cell phone number for students to reach out and contact her, and with this new openness about mental health at Paul Quinn, her phone has been buzzing frequently from students looking for help.

    “The thing we’re trying to get students to understand is that [their] traumas are real. And they do impair or affect how you process daily information. And if you continue to ignore that, you’re going to continue to be impaired and not reach your full potential.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ohio May Be First To Approve Medical Marijuana For Depression, Insomnia

    Ohio May Be First To Approve Medical Marijuana For Depression, Insomnia

    The state is set to vote on whether to add depression and insomnia to the medical marijuana program’s qualifying list of conditions.

    A diagnosis of depression or insomnia may qualify Ohioans for the state’s medical marijuana program.

    In June, state officials will vote on whether to add five more ailments to its list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana—anxiety, autism spectrum disorder, opioid use disorder, depression and insomnia. If they vote to add depression and insomnia to the list, Ohio would be the first state to do so.

    Currently 33 states have established medical marijuana programs, with a different set of qualifying conditions for each state.

    Ohio’s list includes rare conditions, the Cincinnati Enquirer notes, such as sickle cell disease, fibromyalgia and Tourette’s syndrome. Ohio is also currently the only state that allows marijuana for the treatment of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease seen often in football players, boxers and military veterans caused by repeated head trauma.

    Treating opioid use disorder with medical marijuana is already allowed in 4 states—Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Anxiety is a qualifying condition in New Jersey and West Virginia. Autism spectrum disorder is a qualifying condition in Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina and Utah.

    Ohio approved medical marijuana in 2016 with 21 initial qualifying conditions that allow residents to obtain a medical marijuana card with a doctor’s recommendation. This is the first time since then that the State Medical Board has used its power to add to the list of qualifying conditions. The board will hold a final vote on adding the five conditions on June 12.

    The Enquirer found that at least 3.5 million Ohioans suffer from at least one of the 21 qualifying conditions on its current list. If all five conditions are approved by the State Medical Board in June, the number of eligible Ohioans will nearly double.

    The Enquirer’s report emphasized that there is little clinical research on marijuana “since the federal government considers marijuana as dangerous as heroin”—i.e., as long as marijuana remains in Schedule I, a category of drugs defined as having no medical value and a high potential for abuse, it will remain difficult to conduct research on it.

    It seems inevitable that this will change, however. Ten states have decided to legalize marijuana for not only medical use, but recreational use as well. The state of Illinois may join them next. Governor J.B. Pritzker announced plans to legalize marijuana on Saturday (May 4).

    And last week it was reported that Harvard and MIT alumnus Charles R. Broderick donated $9 million to both schools to study cannabis.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Mental Health Apps Could Be Sharing Your Private Data

    Mental Health Apps Could Be Sharing Your Private Data

    A new study found that dozens of mental health apps shared user data with various advertisers, including big names like Facebook and Google.

    Despite the hope of confidentiality, individuals who use mental health apps may have their private information being shared with advertisers. 

    According to a new study published in JAMA Network Open, some mental health apps are sharing private data without the app user’s knowledge. 

    Tech the Lead reports that researchers looked into 36 different mental health-related apps. Of those 36, they discovered that 33 shared user data with various advertisers, including big names like Facebook and Google as well as smaller organizations. 

    Overall, 92% of the apps studied were determined to have shared information with a third party and about 50% of those did not notify users of doing so.

    Of the apps studied, three even explicitly stated they would not share data and nine others completely lacked a privacy policy of any sort. 

    While the shared data wasn’t all necessarily related to medical conditions or were “personally identifiable,” the fact that any information at all was shared is a red flag, says John Torous, co-author of the study.

    “It’s really hard to make an informed decision about using an app if you don’t even know who’s going to get access to some information about you,” Torous said, according to Tech the Lead. 

    Researchers did find, however, that some of the information shared was sensitive, such as journal entries or information about substance use. 

    Steven Chan, a physician at Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System who was not involved in the study but has worked with Torous before, tells The Verge that advertisers could use this information to manipulate audiences. 

    “Potentially advertisers could use this to compromise someone’s privacy and sway their treatment decisions,” he said. 

    Chan cited one example in which someone who is trying to quit smoking may be marketed cigarette alternatives. 

    “Maybe if someone is interested in smoking, would they be interested in electronic cigarettes?” he said. “Or could they potentially introduce them to other similar products, like alcohol?”

    Researchers concluded that mental health app users likely lack the access to information and the choice about such sharing practices. 

    “Data sharing with third parties that includes linkable identifiers is prevalent and focused on services provided by Google and Facebook,” the researchers wrote. “Despite this, most apps offer users no way to anticipate that data will be shared in this way. As a result, users are denied an informed choice about whether such sharing is acceptable to them.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ketamine's Effect On Depression Examined

    Ketamine's Effect On Depression Examined

    A new study offers a better understanding of the way ketamine helps lift depression symptoms.

    Last month, the FDA approved a ketamine-based depression treatment for certain patients.

    The drug, esketamine, is said to relieve depression symptoms “in hours instead of weeks,” marketed for people who haven’t found success in other antidepressants.

    While it is yet unknown how exactly ketamine helps lift depression symptoms, a new study gives us a better understanding of how it works.

    The research confirms that ketamine triggers synapse growth, effectively rewiring the brain, Scientific American reports. They were able to “visualize and manipulate” the brains of stressed mice—demonstrating how ketamine first changes brain circuit function that improved behavior in “depressed mice” in up to 3 hours. Later, the drug stimulated regrowth of synapses in the brain.

    “It’s a remarkable engineering feat, where they were able to visualize changes in neural circuits over time, corresponding with behavioral effects of ketamine,” said Carlos Zarate of the National Institute of Mental Health, who was not involved in the study. “This work will likely set a path for what treatments should be doing before we move them into the clinic.”

    “Our findings open up new avenues for research, suggesting that interventions aimed at enhancing the survival of these new synapses might be useful for extending ketamine’s antidepressant effects,” said study lead Conor Liston of Weill Cornell Medicine.

    In March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved esketamine (also known as Spravato) for people who did not respond to at least two other antidepressant treatments. The drug can only be administered under supervision by one’s doctor, and is said to relieve depression in just hours.

    “There has been a long-standing need for additional effective treatments for treatment-resistant depression, a serious and life-threatening condition,” said Dr. Tiffany Farchione of the FDA.

    Ketamine differs from traditional antidepressants by acting on glutamate, a chemical messenger in the brain, rather than the “monoamine” neurotransmitters (serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine) that traditional antidepressants act on. Glutamate plays an important role in the changes that synapses undergo in response to experiences that underlie learning and memory, Scientific American explains.

    A 23-year-old man suffering from depression, anxiety and other mental disorders shared his experience with ketamine infusion therapy with The Fix. “It helped with every aspect: anxiety, depression, psychosis. I know that’s not what it’s for, but in my case it changed everything,” he said.

    However, medical providers caution that while ketamine shows a lot of promise, there’s still more research to be done on its long-term effects on mental health patients.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Taraji P. Henson Gets Emotional About Black Mental Health

    Taraji P. Henson Gets Emotional About Black Mental Health

    “The number of black children ages 5-12 who have died by suicide has doubled since the 1990s. This is a national crisis,” Henson said.

    During a speech for Variety’s Power of Women New York lunch, Taraji P. Henson of the critically acclaimed series Empire began tearing up while talking about the plight of black mentally ill youth in the U.S.

    “The number of black children ages 5-12 who have died by suicide has doubled since the 1990s,” she said. “This is a national crisis.”

    Henson was recently honored by Variety for the work she has done on and off the screen. In addition to becoming the first black woman to win the Critics Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series, she launched the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation in 2018 in order to battle the stigma against mental illness within black communities. The foundation is named after her father, who suffered mental health issues after returning from a tour in Vietnam.

    “I named the organization after my father because of his complete and unconditional love for me; his unabashed, unashamed ability to tell the truth, even if it hurt; and his strength to push through his own battles with mental health issues,” Henson said in September. “My dad fought in the Vietnam War for our country, returned broken, and received little to no physical and emotional support. I stand now in his absence, committed to offering support to African Americans who face trauma daily, simply because they are black.”

    One of the foundation’s goals is to support Black students majoring in mental health-related fields in order to increase the number of mental health professionals who intimately understand the difficulties of being black in America.

    According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), only about 25% of black Americans seek out mental health services, while white Americans do so 40% of the time. Much of this gap can be attributed to discrimination as well as barriers caused by racial wealth gaps.

    “Misdiagnoses, inadequate treatment and lack of cultural competence by health professionals cause distrust and prevent many African Americans from seeking or staying in treatment,” reads NAMI’s page on African American mental health.

    Henson also drew attention to cultural stigma within the black community and fears of being labeled as “weak” or “inadequate.” Due to the long history of racial oppression in the U.S. going back to slavery, black Americans have passed down what Henson’s foundation calls a code of silence through the generations. Because much of mental health treatment requires opening up about one’s issues, creating a group of “culturally competent” mental health professionals is key to ending the national crisis of black mental illness and suicide.

    “Often, we are asked to seek help from someone who does not look like us, who cannot relate to our stories. We fear we are seen, but not heard because the listener cannot relate to our problems. But, the ability to relate to one another helps us feel understood, helps us to heal. How does one do that if we are branded before we even speak?”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Britney Spears Checks Into Mental Health Facility

    Britney Spears Checks Into Mental Health Facility

    “Her dad being sick has taken a toll on her,” a source close to the pop star revealed.

    Pop icon Britney Spears is checking herself into what she’s calling a facility for “all-encompassing wellness treatment” after a health scare that nearly took her father from her.

    Early this January, Spears composed an emotional tweet announcing that she would not be able to perform her new show, Britney: Domination, because her dad, Jamie Spears, “was hospitalized and nearly died.” Jamie suffered a colon rupture and has undergone multiple surgeries to repair the damage.

    Domination was going to be Spears’ second Las Vegas residency show, during which she would have made $507,000 for each performance, according to Variety — it would have made her the highest paid act in town. The residency is now on indefinite hold after the star dropped everything to spend this time with her family and help take care of her ill father.

    After three months, Spears has decided to take some time to take care of herself. According to a source who spoke to People, her dad is still not doing well and because the two are so close, the stress has taken a lot out of her. However, fans don’t need to worry.

    “Her dad being sick has taken a toll on her,” the source said. “He nearly died and actually had another surgery a few weeks ago. He’s not doing well. They’re so close and it has been a lot. There is nothing dramatic going on with her — she just realized she needs to make sure to take time to care for herself.”

    Spears has been an advocate of self-care for some time, and has shown herself to be dedicated to her family above all else multiple times. Last year, her eight-year-old niece had a frightening accident on her ATV that left the girl unconscious for two days. Spears herself saw her niece, Maddie, crash the vehicle into a pond and sink underwater almost instantly. The entire family present attempted to rescue Maddie without success, but thankfully emergency services were on the scene in two minutes and were able to get her out.

    Thankfully, Maddie was able to make a full recovery without any evident neurological damage.

    Britney Spears is also a mother herself and has recently earned praise for being a dedicated mom who appears to truly care about her kids above all else. In 2016, she published a love letter to her two boys, Jayden and Preston, in TIME. 

    “You are my masterpieces,” she wrote. “From the day I saw the most precious eyes, I believed in miracles to the core. Such a gift God has given me, exploring in your beautiful worlds every day. I pray as a mother I teach you strength and passion to carry through the struggles in the world. Most battles will always be won on your knees. I pray you find your dreams.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can Deep Brain Stimulation Help Treat Psychiatric Disorders?

    Can Deep Brain Stimulation Help Treat Psychiatric Disorders?

    Scientists have been experimenting with whether deep brain stimulation could help those with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

    Certain neurological and psychiatric disorders may be rooted in dysfunctional circuits in the brain — and some studying the area think deep brain stimulation (DBS) may be one way of treating such disorders. 

    The idea, according to NPR, is that it may be possible to pinpoint such circuits and manipulate them to be functional by sending electric pulses to exact regions in the brain. These regions are reached by placing an electrode in the brain, which is then controlled with an implanted device, usually in the collarbone region. Once placed, the frequency of the electric pulses can be controlled by doctors. 

    “Modify the circuit, and you can modify the behavior,” James Giordano, neuroethicist and chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program at Georgetown University Medical Center, tells NPR. “The goal is to use DBS to modify the circuits in such a way as to improve symptoms in a very specific and precise way.”

    While this method has potential to treat a number of conditions, the Food and Drug Administration has only approved it for a select few, including movement disorders (like effects of Parkinson’s disease) and a type of epilepsy that does not respond to other treatment methods.  

    According to NPR, scientists worldwide have been experimenting with whether deep brain stimulation could help those with diagnoses such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Scientists have also tried to use DBS to treat drug cravings. 

    However, clinical study results haven’t been clearcut, as some patients claim DBS has helped, while others have seen no improvement or felt worse. 

    According to Giordano, DBS differs from antidepressants because it can be more fine-tuned and tailored to each individual. 

    “A drug like Prozac or antidepressant drugs is basically like throwing water on your face to get a drink of water,” he told NPR. “Using something like deep brain stimulation is like putting a drop of water on your tongue. We can increase the specificity and precision … and, in many ways, the precision and specificity of deep brain stimulation makes it a more effective tool.”

    When it comes to the procedure of placing a device in the brain, Giordano says there are of course the normal risks of neurosurgery, such as infection. Though rare, he adds, there are also some risks specific to the procedure. 

    “By stimulating Area X, it’s possible that we could get a spillover effect that modulates other things ancillary to that, like personality, temperament, character, personal preferences,” he explained. “There have been case reports and anecdotal reports of things like that happening, but they’re rare.”

    As with any new procedure and technology, Giordano acknowledges that learning the ins and outs of deep brain stimulation won’t always be smooth sailing. However, he says, the capabilities of deep brain stimulation are worth continuing to explore. 

    “Mistakes will get made” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll be bright enough to correct them and recognize them when they occur not only in terms of the technological and scientific mistakes but ethical, moral, legal mistakes. In many ways, this represents something of a brave new world of capability. And I think that we have to be very, very sentinel to what the potential of this could yield.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Could Parental Support Be The Key To Managing Childhood Anxiety?

    Could Parental Support Be The Key To Managing Childhood Anxiety?

    A new study examined whether parents’ accommodation of a child’s anxiety had a positive or negative effect on their mental health.

    Parental support may be equally as effective as individual treatment when it comes to managing childhood anxiety, a new report suggests. 

    According to Yale Daily News, the Yale Child Study Center recently conducted a study in which researchers randomly assigned 124 children with anxiety into one of two groups: a traditional, therapy-based group or a group with parents only. 

    The children in the therapy group went to 12 weekly meetings where they learned to use exposure therapy to manage their symptoms and fears. The children in the parent-only group did not speak to a therapist, but instead their parents were taught to “stop accommodating the child’s behavior and to be supportive of the child’s ability to cope with anxiety themselves,” according to the Daily News.

    The parent-only treatment was referred to as Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE). 

    At the conclusion of the study, researchers found that children in the SPACE group had reduced anxiety symptoms, similar to those in conventional therapy. But in the SPACE group, the parents also reported stronger relationships than the parents in the other group.

    Study author and associate director of the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Program, Eli Lebowitz, tells the Daily News that SPACE is a treatment method equally as effective as traditional therapy. 

    “The results of the study were really quite remarkable,” he said. “Regardless of what measure we used to look at the outcomes, children whose parents received SPACE were as improved and as likely to be cured from their anxiety problem as children who had 12 sessions of some of the best CBT therapy available. And that is truly a remarkable outcome.”

    Lebowitz added that while it’s normal for parents to try to adjust to and accommodate a child’s anxiety, doing so may be detrimental in the long run and could lead the child to have greater anxiety.

    In the study, researchers worked with parents in the SPACE group to learn to use words of support and express confidence in their child instead. 

    In a 2013 study about SPACE, also by Lebowitz, parents were encouraged to follow this script:

    “We understand it makes you feel really anxious or afraid,” the script said. “We want you to know that this is perfectly natural and everyone feels afraid some of the time. But we also want you to know that it is our job as your parents to help you get better at things that are hard for you, and we have decided to do exactly that. We are going to be working on this for a while and we know it will probably take time, but we love you too much not to help you when you need help.”

    Lebowitz tells the Daily News that while the SPACE study results are promising, more research is necessary in order to determine how psychological pathways in a child’s brain are changed by practicing SPACE. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Recent School Shooting-Related Suicides Highlight Need For Survivor Care

    Recent School Shooting-Related Suicides Highlight Need For Survivor Care

    Two survivors of the Parkland school shooting have died by suicide since the tragic event.

    A second death by suicide by a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting reportedly occurred on Saturday, March 23—one week after another student, 19-year-old Sydney Aiello, died by suicide.

    Her mother said that Aiello suffered from PTSD and survivor’s guilt following the deadly mass shooting that occurred in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018, and ended with 17 people dead.

    One week after Aiello’s death, another report of a suicide death surfaced, this time by a yet unidentified 16-year-old boy. This took place one day before the one-year anniversary of the international March For Our Lives protests that were organized by students to demand action against gun violence.

    Ryan Petty, a parent who lost his daughter in the Parkland shooting, alluded to this second suicide death by posting “17 + 2” with a broken heart emoji on Twitter. He told The New York Times that those close to the shooting survivors have been fearing these tragedies.

    “What we feared could happen is happening,” he said.

    In the wake of this second suicide, the American Association of Suicidology (AAS) issued a press release inviting those who are grieving and anyone else at risk to reach out to them, as well as urging Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and other institutions to properly care for survivors of mass shootings and similar traumas. 

    “Youth involved in traumatic experiences are often at higher risk for a number of mental health issues, including experiences of suicidal thoughts,” the memo reads. “In the United States, youth aged 10-24 are already at especially high risk for suicide, which is the second leading cause of death for this age range.”

    AAS also warns readers about the phenomenon of suicide contagion in which simply hearing about another suicide, especially one that is reported on by national news, can increase the risk of further suicide deaths. Those vulnerable to suicide, such as other school shooting survivors, may need extra care during this time.

    “The Parkland survivors have been heroes in their advocacy efforts since the tragedy, but the deaths of these students are a sobering reminder that they are not only young advocates, but also trauma victims and gun violence loss survivors,” said AAS Firearms and Suicide Committee co-chair Michael Anestis.

    In addition to the two Parkland students, the father of one of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 died by suicide Monday morning. Jeremy Richman, 49, was a neuroscientist and co-founder of The Avielle Foundation, a non-profit named for his late daughter. In a statement, the foundation called Richman a “champion father” and vowed to keep his mission alive.

    “Jeremy’s mission will be carried on by the many who love him, including many who share the heartache and trauma that he has suffered since December 14, 2012,” the statement reads. “We are crushed to pieces, but this important work will continue, because, as Jeremy would say, we have to.”

    If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or Text HOME to 741741. If you think someone is in immediate danger, do not leave them alone, stay with them and call 911.

    View the original article at thefix.com