What’s the relationship between violence and psychosis? It’s an emotive debate that’s been running for years. On the one hand we have the net curtain-twitching, tabloid-reading brigade who picture axe-wielding psychopaths as soon as they read the word schizophrenia. On the other we have patients, carers, mental health charities and many clinicians who claim that [read the full story…]
Nearly 10 million people were in prison in 2008, according to estimates provided by the World Prison Population List (Walmsley, 2009). The United States tops the imprisonment league table with 2.3 million individuals behind bars, that’s 756 per 100,000 of the population. Whatever your view on the US legal system and incarceration, it’s interesting to [read the full story…]
Vitamin D is involved in many brain processes, including having a regulatory role of the nervous system and influencing general brain development. These known functions have raised a long held question, might vitamin D deficiency be associated with depression? Some studies have shown a strong relationship between vitamin D and depression, while others have shown [read the full story…]
The links between domestic violence and mental health are well documented. Research shows that people who are suffering from mental health problems may be more vulnerable to domestic violence. Studies also suggest that domestic violence may increase the risk of mental illness and that continued violence may lead to more persistent ill health. However, we [read the full story…]
Vascular dementia is the second most common type of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease. It’s caused by damage to the network of blood vessels supplying the brain. Some symptoms are similar to those associated with Alzheimer’s and stroke, but in particular people with vascular dementia often experience difficulty thinking quickly, concentrating and communicating, as well as [read the full story…]
Schizophrenia is a debilitating illness that affects an estimated 25 million people worldwide. People with the condition can experience a huge amount of disability (both social, physical and psychological), but we know that early intervention can help reduce the duration of the illness and prevent further episodes of relapse. People with schizophrenia usually experience a [read the full story…]
Work-related stress is everywhere these days. Obviously us elves are pretty much immune, but looking at the Bristol Stress and Health at Work Study (Smith 2000) I can see that more than 50% of human respondents reported being extremely, very or moderately stressed at work. You lovely people do suffer from lots of emotional and [read the full story…]
A friend of mine is currently training to be a Yoga instructor. This got me thinking about Yoga and musculoskeletal conditions. The different Yoga poses focus on increasing the flexibility of the joints and improving postural stability through improvements in muscle strength. Yoga also aims to release the tension on muscles with the aim of [read the full story…]
I was watching the Liverpool v Manchester United football match yesterday and was interested in the pre-match warm up the players were doing. There was lots of stretching of the hamstrings going on. Hamstring injuries are common in athletes and frequently result in long delays in return to sport. So what is the comparative effectiveness [read the full story…]
Evidence-based treatments for mental health conditions have come on in leaps and bounds in the last 20 years. I remember as a young elf, skipping around the country and running workshops on evidence-based mental health; training psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and others. There wasn’t much gold standard evidence to choose from back then and there was [read the full story…]
