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Recovery Update features the most recent articles from throughout the field of psychiatric rehabilitation. Stay up to date on all the latest mental health news through this weekly newsletter.
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Families, patients, providers and lawmakers have increasingly called attention to the state's "lack of service" for thousands of residents in need of mental health crisis care. But signs of improvement are slowly emerging.
Colorado legislators recently narrowly rejected a second measure that would raised taxes on alcohol products in order to fund mental health care treatment in the state. Proponents said the new revenue is necessary to help pay for mental health treatment, while critics said legislators should not be targeting an industry that's already being squeezed, as consumer habits shift and production costs rise.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has announced a statewide online mental health bed registry aiming to reduce wait times and ensure people in crisis receive care as soon as possible. According to a news release, the Behavioral Health Statewide Central Availability Navigator (BH SCAN) is now updated hourly instead of once per day and has been integrated with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Imagine your dream is to get a job at the local library. You have a love for people and for books. You also have schizophrenia, a psychiatric disability that makes life in the community more challenging. You often have extreme psychological experiences. When you leave your apartment, you hear voices that tell you it's not safe, and you feel scared. People seem to keep their distance from you. You feel lonely sometimes.
Depression and suicidal ideation are stubbornly high among college students despite increased efforts by universities to combat the long-growing problem. While nearly all four-year institutions and the vast majority of community colleges offer mental health services, it hasn't been enough to combat the academic stress, increased screen and social media time, rising isolation and other factors experts say can contribute to the difficulties students face.
Amanda Miller was 30 and pregnant with her second child in Hershey, Pennsylvania, when she developed depression. After she gave birth, her depression worsened. It was joined by a slew of unexplained health problems.
Along with chronic pain, mental health conditions are some of the top reasons people use marijuana for medical purposes. But a sweeping review of cannabis studies over the past 45 years concludes there is little to no high-quality evidence showing this is effective.
Too often, mental health systems around the world fail people with psychosocial disabilities, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Alicia Ely Yamin. In the March 18 episode of the Mad in America podcast, Yamin — an adjunct senior lecturer on health policy and management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Global Health and Rights Project at Harvard Law School — emphasized the importance of seeing mental health as a human rights issue and stressed the need for policies that get at the root causes of mental distress.
The adoption of remote consultations following the COVID-19 pandemic raised questions about the impact on patient outcomes. Here we assess the relationship between the proportion of remote consultations in primary care and subsequent acute mental health service use, specifically emergency contacts with mental health liaison teams, psychiatric hospital admissions, inpatient bed-days and compulsory admissions under the Mental Health Act.
Historically, the clinical focus during heatwaves has centered on physical risks, such as heatstroke, acute kidney failure, and cardiovascular collapse. But a growing body of evidence suggests that the rising mercury can have serious effects on people's mental health — and not just in terms of the distress and grief people might feel witnessing the planet get hotter. Heat has immediate effects on our emotions, coping abilities, and behaviors.
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