As previously discussed on the Mental Elf, the rates of tobacco smoking in most developed countries are falling, helped in part by high levels of taxation and bans on smoking in public places. However, over 20% of adults in the UK continue to smoke, and this means that smoking is the greatest single cause of [read the full story…]
Disability Hate Crime refers to crimes targeted at anybody as a result of his or her disability or impairment, as defined by the Equality Act 2010 and can take many forms, including ate crime can take many forms including: physical attacks, threats of attack or verbal abuse, insults or harassment. The association of Chief Police [read the full story…]
Periodontal disease is very common and is an important cause of tooth loss. While the impact of other oral conditions on quality of life the impact from periodontal disease has received less attention. Oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) is a subjective construct that is multidimensional with a number of domains. There is also no [read the full story…]
Clinical Commissioning Groups, hospices, patients, carers, and all staff who provide palliative care to children. This short guide has been written for Clinical Commissioning Groups, hospices, patients, carers, and all staff who provide palliative care to children. Commissioners need to be aware that palliative care for children is very different to palliative care for adults, [read the full story…]
A cohort study published in JAMA tried to answer the question what are the risk factors for suicide in the US military. This is a hot topic as the rate of suicide has increased in US military personnel from about 11/100,000 people in 2005 to about 18/100,000 so that now deaths from suicide outnumber deaths [read the full story…]
Dentine hypersensitivity (DH) and various treatments have been used to treat the condition (Dental Elf 17th July). Epidemiological studies have produced prevalence figures for this ranging from 1.34% to 98% so the objective of this study, was to determine by clinical examination combined with a questionnaire, the prevalence of DH in 18–35 years old Europeans [read the full story…]
Meta-analyses are an incredibly useful tool for synthesising evidence. However, such analyses typically use aggregate data, meaning the average scores or outcomes for treatment groups, which can cause problems if we’re trying to dig a little deeper into the question of ‘what works’ to answer ‘what works, and for whom?’ The ‘for whom?’ question is [read the full story…]
Atypical (second-generation) antipsychotics are used to treat a variety of psychiatric conditions. Although they have fewer side effects than first-generation antipsychotics, weight gain and other metabolic problems (such as high blood pressure and diabetes) remain common side effects of taking atypical antipsychotic medication (Mind, 2012). The Mental Elf has previously blogged about a Canadian report [read the full story…]
To produce alignment without extraction. It has been suggested that passive self-ligating brackets can introduce specific, uniquely stable arch dimensional changes. The aim of this trial was to quantify maxillary arch dimensional changes and maxillary incisor and molar inclination changes during orthodontic alignment by directly comparing a passive self-ligating bracket, an active self-ligating system and [read the full story…]
The recently published guidance from the joint commissioning panel for mental health suggested that ‘there is no universally agreed commissioning model for mental health services supporting people with learning disabilities’ and this reflects an on-going debate about the structure and delivery of services to meet the needs of this group. The commissioning guidance suggests that [read the full story…]
