http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/expert.q.a/06/07/reality.voices.suicidal.raison/index.html?hpt=he_bn1

Are the psychoses of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia very similar? How do you tell psychotic bipolar disorder apart from schizophrenia with mood disorder? How similar are the two diseases considering that the same medicines (anti-psychotics) are beneficial to both?

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Steep increases since 1990 in the percentage of mothers who gained too little or too much weight (less than 16 pounds or more than 40) during pregnancy – up from 24 percent to 33 percent of all births.

Researchers examined Tennessee Medicaid records covering the 15 years ending in 2005. They focused on about 44,000 users of older anti-psychotic drugs like haloperidol and about 46,000 users of newer drugs like Zyprexa, made by Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co., and Risperdal, made by New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson Inc.

The study also included 186,600 people who weren’t taking
anti-psychotics but resembled the users in age, heart risk status another characteristics.  Some 1,900 participants died of sudden cardiac death over the 15 years.

Analysis found that taking either the older or the newer drugs roughly doubled the risk of sudden cardiac death. The overall rate in drug users was about three deaths per year for every 1,000 patients.

Technorati Tags: antipsychotic, medication, pharmacology

Defense officials have rejected the idea that troops suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder should be eligible for the Purple Heart.

“PTSD is an anxiety disorder caused by witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event; it is not a wound intentionally caused by the enemy from an ‘outside force or agent,’ but is a secondary effect caused by witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event,” said Defense Department spokeswoman Eileen Lainez.

The matter came up in May, when a military psychologist at Fort Bliss, Texas, told reporters he felt that making troops suffering from PTSD eligible for the Purple Heart would help remove the disorder’s stigma.

A report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration — part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — said an estimated 24.3 million people ages 18 years or older experienced serious psychological distress in the past year, however, only 44.6 percent of them received any kind of mental health services.

People with lower incomes – roughly $64,000 for a family of four – were about twice as likely to use the ER as those from households with higher incomes. Similarly, respondents whose primary language was not English were also about twice as likely to use ERs for nonemergencies, compared to their English-speaking counterparts. Hispanics and nonwhite residents were also about twice as likely to head to the ER for illnesses that their primary-care doctor typically could have handled.

Technorati Tags: ER, Health Care, Insurance

After falling for more than a decade, the U.S. suicide rate has climbed
steadily since 1999, driven by an alarming increase among middle-age
adults, researchers said Monday.

A new six-year analysis in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine
found that the U.S. suicide rate rose to 11 per 100,000 people in 2005,
from 10.5 per 100,000 in 1999, an increase of just under 5%.

A psychiatric patient died at a North Carolina mental hospital after
nurses left him in a chair and didn’t give him any food or water for
nearly a day, according to a report cited by the News & Observer.

Steven Sabock, 50, died of a heart problem about 22 hours after someone left him on a chair in the dayroom at Cherry Hospital.

“The hospital’s security video recorded Sabock’s care from April 28,
when he choked on his medicine while a nurse stood by without helping
him, and through his day without food until his death from a heart
problem,” the paper says. “Health care technicians, according to the
report, are seen on the recording watching television through the
night, playing cards, and talking on a cell phone while they were in
the room with Sabock.”