Back from my 5-mile run around the woodland yesterday morning I sat down to catch up on the latest elf stories. Many of the national newspapers reported on a new randomised controlled trial published in the BMJ, which studied ‘facilitated physical activity’ for people with depression. The headlines seemed to be in agreement: Exercise ‘no [read the full story…]
For many different reasons, people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders have a greater risk of type 2 diabetes. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes in people with schizophrenia is twice that of the general population. This review looked for evidence of the efficacy of interventions to help people with schizophrenia manage their diabetes. Clinical question [read the full story…]
Exercise is a good thing right? It seems obvious that people who are affected by mental health problems would benefit from getting themselves outside and becoming more active, but are these ‘treatments’ value for money when they are delivered in a structured way? The current NICE depression guideline recommends ‘structured’ physical activity programmes for depression [read the full story…]
We know that exercise helps people who are going through mental health difficulties, but how can we encourage people to become more active? Exercise referral schemes aim to identify inactive adults in the primary care setting. The GP or healthcare professional then refers the patient to a third-party service, with this service taking responsibility for [read the full story…]
The Five Ways to Wellbeing is a set of evidence-based public mental health messages aimed at improving the mental health and wellbeing of the whole population. They were developed by the New Economics Foundation as the result of a commission by Foresight, the UK government‟s futures think-tank, as part of the Foresight Project on Mental [read the full story…]
Physical activity has an important role to play in promoting mental health and well-being by preventing mental health problems and improving the quality of life of those experiencing mental health problems and illnesses. For example, evidence shows that physical activity can reduce the risk of depression, dementia and Alzheimer’s. It also shows that physical activity [read the full story…]
The British Psychological Society has published a new report about integrating psychological treatments with other interventions for obesity. The report covers: Obesity in children Weight loss surgery Physical activity and exercise psychology – healthy weight management for adults Exercise for obese individuals Applied psychology and obesity management Pharmacological interventions Psychological interventions for people with BMI>35 Dr [read the full story…]
The BMJ have published an up to date guideline on the treatment of depression with drugs and physical interventions. It provides a good overview of the effectiveness and safety of antidepressants, electroconvulsive therapy, exercise, lithium augmentation, pindolol augmentation, and St John’s wort. The authors found 88 systematic reviews, RCTs, or observational studies and performed a [read the full story…]
Depression has a habit of attaching itself to lots of health problems, not just for the patient, but also sometimes for carers and other family members. This systematic review and meta-analysis looks at the association between activity restriction and depression in medical patients and their caregivers. The review found a clear positive relationship between lack [read the full story…]
NICE guidance has sometimes suffered from poor accessibility and usability, and as a result, it has not always been implemented at the coalface as well as it could have been. NICE have responded to this criticism by creating a set of interactive online pathways that bring together all of their content around a specific topic. [read the full story…]
