People with learning disabilities have low take-up rates for health promotion or screening activities. Work in the south west of the country to look at reasonable adjustments a couple of years ago resulted in a number of recommendations for local action along with recommendations to the national cancer screening programmes regarding the identification of people [read the full story…]
Recent NICE guidance suggested that 30% of people over 65 and 50% of people over older than 80 fall at least once a year and there is evidence that in people with learning disabilities there is some increased risk and this impacts on people of younger age. Finlayson, in a prospective cohort study suggested that [read the full story…]
Dave Steele reports on a recent observational case series published in the Lancet Psychiatry, which concludes that patients with mental illness are two and a half times more likely to be victims of homicide than the general population.
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Andrew Shepherd reviews the recent controversial BMJ study that suggests the FDA black box warning about antidepressant use in young people, may have inadvertently caused an increase in suicidal behaviour. He finds it’s not quite that clear cut.
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Linking brain scans with genetic information offers a powerful way to further our understanding of how the brain works, but to do this properly many researchers from around the world need to collaborate. Fortunately, the ENIGMA Consortium are leading the way in this emerging field of imaging genomics.
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This recent study concludes that childhood abuse creates an enduring vulnerability to psychosis that is realised in the event of exposure to further stressors and risk factors, such as separation, bereavement, or being involved in an accident or physical attack.
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People diagnosed with schizophrenia are 7.4 times more likely to be convicted of violent offences, 8.1 times more likely to die prematurely, and 20.7 times more likely to kill themselves.
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For people who are suffering from a severe depression, antidepressants are a very effective treatment, but how they work is still not fully understood. The basic biochemistry of how one dose of the drug affects one part of the nervous system is known, e.g. increasing serotonin levels at the synapse by preventing it from being [read the full story…]
When performing root canal treatment determining the position of the apical constriction of the tooth in order to gauge the ‘working length’ of the root canal is an important step. Traditional this has been performed with radiographs although electronic apex locators (EALs) have been available for may years and are becoming increasingly popular. The aim [read the full story…]
Liaison psychiatry brings together medical and psychiatric staff in hospital wards and emergency departments, with the aim of more adequately addressing comorbidities between physical and mental health. It’s something that’s been discussed in the Woodland before, with recommendations for wider implementation. The Guardian recently published an article discussing the findings of a recent study and [read the full story…]
