Lifeline Anxiety Disorder Newsletter |
News and views for people - and families of people - who suffer from the panic brought about by fears, anxieties and phobias. |
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JANUARY 31st, 2004
While pharmaceutical companies seem to have put aside the potential for unprecedented market demand for vaccines to fight chemical weapons of mass destruction, in favour of laying the foundation for the need for vaccines to fight global 'flu pandemics, the original marketing strategy for Prozac, as recorded in David Healey's latest book, "Let Them Eat Prozac", takes on greater significance. Prozac was launched, in 1988, as an anti-depressant not because it was an anti-depressant but because the market for anti-anxiety medications (or tranquillisers, as they were generally known then) had bottomed out due to the bad press Valium received when its addictive properties were sensationalized in the late 1970s. Since Prozac was actually discovered in the mid 1970s when doctors were still prescribing Valium on demand, does this mean that all those diagnoses of depression instead of secondary depression caused by symptoms of anxiety disorders, in the 1980s, were due to the stage being set to create a market for a new miracle drug? In retrospect, it looks as if this was the case and, in fact, some good did come out of it - anxiety disorders are now properly defined instead of generally being homogenously diagnosed as bad nerves, but that came out of the subsequent need for clarification not a desire to assist humanity on the part of a pharmaceutical company. Their severity notwithstanding, one can't help wondering how much press coverage given to West Nile Virus, SARS and, now, the Avian Flu, is cause for alarm and how much just so much PR paving the way for sales of lucrative drugs and vaccines.
JANUARY 29th, 2004
Women are 15% more likely than men to die of a heart attack and twice as likely to have a second heart attack in the six years following the first. One of the biggest issues involved is the percentage of women who suffer depression, anxiety or both as a result of heart disease which results in their failing to make lifestyle changes following a heart attack - depressed or anxious people are literally unable to make the changes they should in order to prevent another heart attack. Healthcare professionals, thankfully, are beginning to recognize and treat mental health problems in women who have heart disease. Veterans can get treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at veteran centers across the US. Operated by the Readjustment Counseling Service, the centres have helped more than 1.6 million veterans and about 600,000 family members since opening in 1980. They were originally designed to serve Vietnam veterans but, since the need was identified in 1996, have offered counselling to veterans of all US military conflicts, including more than 100,000 Gulf War veterans and more than 35,000 World War II veterans - over fifty years after the fact.
JANUARY 27th, 2004
A University College, London, study shows that people who are tuned into what is going on inside their bodies are more likely to experience negative emotions, including anxiety. The participants were asked to judge whether their heart rates were in tune with a series of tones played for them while their brain activity was scanned. The people who could estimate their heart rate most accurately proved to have higher levels of activity in the right anterior insular cortex, an area known to be linked to the perception of bodily responses to emotion. They were also the people who reported more anxiety and other negative emotions in everyday life. While more study is needed, it could be that if people with anxiety disorder are proven to be more aware than others of internal physical conditions, such awareness could be developed as a form of therapy. One in five of the American military personnel in Iraq is expected to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and more than six hundred US servicemen and women have been evacuated from Iraq for psychiatric reasons since the conflict began last year. Twenty-two soldiers have killed themselves - most of them since the end of major combat was declared. The majority of psychiatric evacuations have also taken place since then, no psychiatric cases at all having been evacuated during the major combat period.
JANUARY 26th, 2004
Nice to see that they appreciate mental health services downunder - Australia Day Honours included Dr. David CROMPTON of the Toowoomba Hospital, Queensland who was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to community mental health through the development of programs to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder and alcohol and drug disorders.
JANUARY 25th, 2004
Howard Liebgold or "Dr. Fear" is a retired physician who, for the past 20 years, has been using humour, puppets and squirt guns to help people learn to control phobias of almost every kind... and Dr. Liebgold has walked his talk. He suffered from severe claustrophobia for more than thirty years, unable go anywhere that would cause him to feel trapped and afraid of people finding out. After a class, similar to the ones he now teaches himself, helped him to control his anxiety, he decided to spend the rest of his career helping other phobics. His premise? Phobics can be cured by confronting their fears and learning to control their anxiety but, because people are not trained to manage their anxiety, they must be trained experientially to control their phobias and obsessions.
JANUARY 24th, 2004
MSN Money currently has an article posted on the fact that anybody applying for individual health insurance is in for a rude surprise if they have, at any time, had a prescription for Prozac, Paxil, etc. or undergone counselling for an anxiety disorder. Yes, insurance companies will refuse you a policy, deny you coverage or refuse your claim - whichever. Working for a small company, which has no group insurance, or being self-employed becomes a pretty expensive undertaking yet, for many - especially older people, it is the only way to be employed at all. Our family lives in Canada and Canadians like to kid themselves that everything's better here than it is south of the border. However, we discovered this anti-mental health stance of health insurance companies many years ago (not quite sure whether it developed as a result of the Canadian insurance companies selling out to the U.S. ones or if it existed before Blue Cross became Liberty Health - now, Maritime Health - etc.) and have been living by it for all those many years. The thing that really bugs me is the refusal to pay for prescriptions at source - i.e., any prescriptions - because of it. We know we're second class citizens and you're not going to pay for Paxil but why refuse to pay immediately for an antibiotic after surgery? The humiliations are even greater than the MSN article tells you! That brings up another topic - I wonder how much impact the sensationalizing by People Magazine, of his committing the big mental health no-no, had on the Iowa results and the subsequent leadership hopes of Howard Dean, a staunch advocate of universal decent healthcare?
JANUARY 21st, 2004
A press release issued by the US National Institute of Mental Health today tells us that three brain areas of panic disorder patients are lacking in a key component of a chemical messenger system that regulates emotion. Brain scans reveal that a type of serotonin receptor is reduced by nearly a third in three structures straddling the center of the brain. The finding is the first in living humans to show that the receptor, which is pivotal to the action of widely prescribed anti-anxiety medications, may be abnormal in the disorder and may help to explain how genes might influence vulnerability. See the press release at http://www.nimh.nih.gov/events/prpanicreceptor.cfm
JANUARY 20th, 2004
Police officers, paramedics and firefighters in Toronto have launched a campaign to raise public awareness for Critical Incident Stress (CIS), a debilitating post-traumatic stress-like disorder for which sick leave is being denied to emergency services personnel due to there being no physical injury. 'Debriefing' is losing credibility as research proves that not everybody is at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The idea that victims must disclose their feelings about a traumatic event to counsellors in order to avoid ongoing psychological scars is beginning to be discounted in favour of the simple caring support of family and friends which has been practised for generations. Vulnerability to PTSD is not universal. Most people who have witnessed or been involved in a disaster recover spontaneously over time and need only comfort, safety and emotional support. Others - the small percentage of in people who have pre-existing physychological and/or environmental PTSD triggers - need extended psychological care. A debriefing session does not alter these facts.
JANUARY 18th, 2004
A compound called D-cycloserine appears to speed up the behavioural therapy involved in fear extinction. One study shows participants taking the drug before only two therapy sessions effectively improving their fear of heights to the same extent as a control group needing eight sessions. Since many people do not complete exposure therapy programs due to the cost and time involved, the drug is potentially of great importance in such programs which are used in treating a number of anxiety disorders. Trials, using D-cycloserine, are underway at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital to reduce the time required in behavioural therapy for people with panic disorders, and it is predicted that it will also be used in treating social phobia, posttraumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
JANUARY 17th, 2004
An article from Idaho's Brigham Young University says some stress and anxiety can be beneficial. While anxiety disorder is the most common mental health issue in the country and despite the problems large amounts of stress can cause, many people believe it can have a positive effect. According to the article if properly managed, stress can be useful as a motivator in solving problems and increasing efficiency. Up to a point, stress can actually promote wellness. But, beyond that point, its impact depends on how it is managed. Social Phobics Anonymous (S.P.A.) of Boulder Colorada http://www.geocities.com/seanphilib/ColoradoSPA.html has adapted the 12-step recovery approaches of A.A., O.C.A. and CODA to dealing with social phobia. A free, volunteer organization, S.P.A. has support groups which are available by telephone and email. More details are available on the website.
JANUARY 16th, 2004
Researchers and parents of children with selective mutism (SM) will hear news and get advice gather about helping children with SM in San Diego this weekend. The Selective Mutism Group/Childhood Anxiety Network is co-hosting a conference January 17-18 at the Quality Resort Hotel in Mission Valley with the University of Phoenix and Children's Hospital. Selective mutism is considered to be an extreme form of social anxiety in children which prevents them from being able to speak in most social situations. It usually runs in families - more than seventy percent of children diagnosed with SM have family members who have social phobia or another anxiety disorder. The Therapeutic Products Directorate of Health Canada has approved Paxil CR™, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) in controlled release form, for the treatment of depression, panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. Clinical studies demonstrate that Paxil CR™ significantly reduces the incidence of nausea which is a common side-effect in the first few weeks of treatment.
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