Reports Of Mental Illness

Canadian attitudes toward mental illness are a cause for concern, the Canadian Medical Association said Monday in releasing its annual report card on health care. The group's eighth annual report surveyed Canadians to measure attitudes and experiences with the health-care system."This year’s report card shines a harsh, and frankly unflattering, light on the attitudes we Canadians have concerning mental health," said the group's president, Dr. Brian Day, in a release.

The survey found:

• Almost half of Canadians, 46 per cent, think people use the term mental illness as an excuse for bad behaviour.
• One in four Canadians are fearful of being around those who suffer from serious mental illness.
• Half of Canadians would tell friends or coworkers that they have a family member with a mental illness, compared to 72 per cent for a diagnosis of cancer or 68 per cent for diabetes.
• Most Canadians, 61 per cent, would be unlikely to go to a family doctor with a mental illness, and 58 per cent would shy away from hiring a lawyer, child-care worker or financial adviser with the illness.

Being a part of our very poorly informed culture, my sisters and brothers were not really aware of any sort of mental illness.

Ridiculous Stigma Of Mental Illness.

OTTAWA - Bell will put $50 million into mental health programs over the next five years, the company said Tuesday. Canadians need to reduce the stigma associated with a problem that affects most families, the company's CEO said in a statement. "It's become apparent to Bell there's more to be done on understanding mental health issues," said George Cope. "One in five Canadians will experience mental health issues in their lives.

"Mental health is...still one of the least-funded areas of health," and accounts for 15% of health problems in Canada but gets only 6% of funding, Olympic medallist Clara Hughes added some star power to the event in Ottawa and will act as the face of the Let's Talk campaign. The campaign will donate 5 cents to mental health programs for every text message Bell customers send and every long distance call they make on Feb. 9, 2011.
Hughes, a six-time Olympic medallist, says the campaign is personal for her because she was depressed for two years after her first Olympic games. She asked to be part of the campaign because she wants to reduce the "ridiculous" stigma of mental illness.

End the stigma of mental disease

End the stigma of mental disease

A mental illness is n o more the fault of the patient than any other medical disorder. Those afflicted with mental illnesses are no different from those with cancer, heart problems or blindness. Mental illness reduces the job opportunities available to those who suffer from it. They often have difficulty in school, and find themselves lagging behind other students, even though many who suffer from mental conditions are intellectually gifted. Yet society tags them with a stigma that sets them apart from others.

Sweeping changes closed many health care institutions, leaving thousands of the mentally ill on the streets and contributing greatly to this country’s homeless problem. Newly developed drugs show progress, but prescribing them is still a crapshoot. It is virtually impossible to determine what will work and what won’t and most have horrific side effects.

Onslow County has experienced its share of suicides stemming from mental illness, including the recent death of a young serviceman who shot himself while struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Tom Bagosy, a war veteran and the father of two small children, found no comfort or help within the system.

No one asks to be afflicted with a mental disorder; no one deserves to be treated as a pariah because they have one.

 

Sport helps young people strike mental health issues

Sport helps young people strike mental health issues

A SOCIAL enterprise scheme in Erdington which uses exercise to help young people with mental health issues is welcoming new members. Start Again is aimed at empowering young people with or at risk of mental health issues and encouraging them to regain control of their lives. Aimed at those aged 13 to 30, Start Again team gives the traditional approached one-on-one sessions, group work, help with housing issues, work placements, sexual health advice and confidence building. But they also offers exercise, which is shown to improve mental wellbeing. Their football coaching service provides young people with access to a structured and safe environment where football is used therapeutically and as a gateway into a wide range of developmental services

The scheme has proved so successful that it is now able to open up to new recruits and has a new base in the Erdington Health and Wellbeing Walk-in Centre, in High Street. Mark Peters, chief executive officer of the Start Again Project, said: "The results from our pilot project showed that at the end of the football programme, 90 percent of the participants enrolled in further education and there was a reduction in cannabis use and dependency on prescription drugs. Users continued to be involved with their own health after the sessions were finished, and one participant even signed up to start their own social enterprise in art and design."One in six people in the UK will have, at some point in their life, a mental health issue. It is widely known that effects of mental illness in early life have a negative impact upon people's opportunities to complete education, training, gain qualifications or become socially and economically independent."The Start Again team will be available at the Walk-in Centre, from 10am to 11am on Tuesdays and Fridays, from next week. Young people can drop in to sign up to the scheme.

HIV, AIDS disturbs Mental Fitness

HIV, AIDS disturbs Mental Fitness

                          

 Stress is a contributor to illness. Stress lowers the immune system’s ability to fight off viruses.

It is a “vicious circle,” in which people get ill, become stressed, and stress worsens the illness.
Doctors prescribe bed rest not just to allow the body to heal, but so the patient will calm down. .
It follows that a particularly stressful illness like HIV would be a great burden to a person’s mental health. People with HIV have weakened immune systems, and are advised by all means to reduce stress in their lives. This affects the way they earn a living and how they cope with family and personal relationships. Now it is learned from a meeting of mental health professionals in Johannesburg last week that people living with HIV and AIDS are at an increased risk of developing serious mental disorders. Such disorders go beyond the depression that inflicts people when they learn they are HIV positive–a depression that requires counseling and constant effort to overcome.For Swaziland, with its incipient psychiatric services, this is a tall order. But a foundation already exists – the incorporation of counselling into HIV testing services is well established.A counsellor is not a psychiatrist, however. A psychiatrist is a trained doctor who can detected serious mental illness and prescribe remedies, sometimes medication and sometimes talk therapy.

Participants in the Johannesburg meeting cited studies from all over the world that reported how in all populations it seems that mental health disorders are growing the fastest among people infected with HIV. Studies find that people with HIV have double the incidence of mental illnesses of HIV-negative people.

Oil-Spill Damage Spreads to people

Oil-Spill Damage Spreads to people

                                                          Psychiatrists and mental health professionals are responding to the emotional aftermath of the massive BP oil spill that disrupted the lives of thousands in states bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

The oil that spilled out of BP's Macondo well fouled the waters and shores of the Gulf of Mexico, then disrupted lives and communities along a coastline already devastated by a cascade of disasters.

Many were still struggling to recover from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and Gustav in 2008 when the BP well blew up on April 20, killing 11 drilling-rig workers and spewing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf for the next three months. The blowout stunned the region's economy and stressed its residents psychologically.

Concern for contamination of fish and other seafood led to closing of some fishing grounds in the Gulf, crippling one of the region's major industries. Vacationers cancelled trips after seeing media reports of oil-soaked beaches. Fishermen, seafood processors, and resort workers found themselves without jobs for months, and perhaps longer.

Then the federal government's ban on oil drilling in the Gulf threw yet another segment of the economy out of work. Many people in the region work in both the oil and fishing industries and so were left with no way to pay their bills.

Mental Fitness Society Workers to be Furloughed

Mental Fitness Society Workers to be Furloughed       

                                          BATON ROUGE, La. - Some 250 employees of a local state agency that treats mental health and addictive disorders will be furloughed for seven days without pay to avoid a $518,000 deficit, the agency's executive director said. The move is being taken to avoid state employee layoffs, Capital Area Human Service District Executive Director Jan Kasofsky said Thursday. "If we did a layoff, it would really hurt our ability to deliver services," Kasofsky said. She said the furlough will affect services some, "but when we are up and running we will be able to run a better ship." 

                                                "It was the least disruptive of the options," Kasofsky said. Most of the affected employees are in direct service positions, including doctors, nurses, social workers, counselors, therapeutic guards and medical records personnel, Kasofsky said. The Capital Area serves some 10,000 people in its mental health and addictive disorders clinics annually.

The district serves those in need of mental health and addictive disorder treatment in the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Ascension, East Feliciana, Iberville, Pointe Coupee, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana. Layoffs would have more severely affected the agency's ability to deliver services because ten or more employees would have lost their jobs, Kasofsky said. Under the plan, approved by Civil Service, affected employees will be furloughed at various designated times between now and the end of the year. The furlough days will be before or after state holidays