Social care super-blogger Ermintrude considers a study about dementia carers’ experience of the health and social care system and reflects on what it means for current dementia policy.
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Lesley Dawson summarises a recent systematic review of eccentric exercise (where the muscle lengthens, rather than shortens, against resistance) for lateral epicondylitis. She finds evidence to support its use in decreasing pain and improving function.
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Andrew Jones summarises a large Finnish population-based cohort study, which finds that childhood adversities strongly predict the use of psychotropic drugs (such as antidepressants and antipsychotics) in adulthood.
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Helen Bould summarises a new systematic review that finds a lack of evidence for the digital treatment or prevention of eating disorders. With so many new websites and apps popping up every week, why is there no reliable evidence of positive effect?
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In her first blog for the Musculoskeletal Elf, Pamela Andrews a sports therapist and a PhD candidate at Glasgow Caledonian University discusses a recent systematic reiew of meta-analyses evaluating the effectiveness of exercise for depression in adults with arthritis, fibromyalgia and other rheumatic diseases.
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Olivia Maynard reports on a recent Cochrane review that investigates talking therapies for reducing alcohol consumption in illicit drug users. The reviewers found no differences in the effectiveness of different psychotherapies (motivational interviewing, brief interventions, CBT) and insufficient evidence to draw any meaningful conclusions.
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Alison Turner blogs about a new telehealth toolkit from the NHS Commissioning Assembly, which provides a range of resources including checklists, case studies and links to the evidence base.
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Meg Fluharty reports on a new Cochrane review of interventions to improve return to work in depressed people. The review finds moderate quality evidence for a range of work-directed and clinical interventions that can help people with depression return to work.
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Helge Hasselmann reports on a new Cochrane systematic review of interventions for enhancing medication adherence, which finds insufficient evidence to draw any conclusions. The full health benefits of medicines will not be realised until better interventions and better studies are conducted in this area.
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Mark Horowitz summarises the new WHO and UCL Institute of Health Equity (Michael Marmot) report and research paper on social determinants of mental health. He concludes that it’s time to focus on the root causes of mental distress, namely poverty, unemployment, poor education and social isolation.
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