Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Using Medicaid to Support Working Age Adults with Serious Mental Illnesses in the Community: A Handbook A January 2005 handbook produced by HHS (and called to our attention by the Open Minds web site) that explains "how existing Medicaid options and waivers are used by states to finance a broad range of community services and supports for adults with serious mental illnesses and to demonstrate what aspects of state-of-the-art community services and supports for this population are funded by Medicaid."  
  

Antipsychotics Suppress Symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Reuters Health story at Medscape - "The antipsychotic agents risperidone and haloperidol reduce manifestations of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) when used as add-on therapy with an antidepressant, results of a small crossover trial suggest. Serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) antidepressants are commonly used to treat OCD, but approximately half of patients do not respond to SRI monotherapy." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

New Drug Abuse Treatment Shows Promise Science Daily story - "Patients who receive buprenorphine treatment for opioid addiction in an office--based setting are more likely than those receiving methadone treatment to be young men, new to drug use, and with no history of methadone treatment, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in a study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Approved for treating heroin and prescription opiate pain killer abuse in 2002, office--based buprenorphine holds the promise of bringing new patients into treatment. While heroin and prescription opiate pain killer abuse has substantially increased over the years, the availability of treatment has not increased with the demand."  
  

U.S. researchers find connection between pleasure-regulating brain chemical and anorexia AP story reprinted at PsycPORT - "Women who suffer from anorexia have increased chemical activity in a part of the brain that controls reward and reinforcement, something that may explain why they are driven to lose weight but don't get any pleasure from it, according to a new study. Researchers used brain-imaging technology on 10 women who had recovered from anorexia and 12 healthy women. In the anorexic women, they found overactivity by dopamine receptors in a part of the brain known as the basal ganglia. Dopamine is a brain chemical that is associated with regulating pleasure..."  
  

Cultural Diversity and Mental Health Story at Red Nova - "The article presents a study on identifying ethnic differences in battered women's use of health, mental health, and spiritual coping strategies, as well as differences in the perceived helpfulness of each strategy. There are a range of health and mental health effects of domestic violence that cause a woman to need help, including lacerations, bruises, gastrointestinal symptoms, depression, shame, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and insomnia. Although there has been research on the ethnic differences in help seeking among domestic violence victims in shelters, there remains a paucity of research on the types of help women are likely to seek for their symptoms. "  
  

Ministers reject concerns over mental health law (UK) Guardian story - "The government today vowed to press ahead with its controversial overhaul of mental health legislation, against the advice of MPs and peers. The Department of Health and the Home Office said the parliamentary committee that scrutinised the legislation was wrong to conclude that it would erode civil liberties. The departments today accused the joint committee on the draft mental health bill of missing the point about the proposed measures to widely extend compulsory treatment and detain people suffering from mental illnesses or personality disorders." See also Mental health committee 'misses the point' (ePolitix.com) and Rethink - Mental Health Bill concessions fail to meet concerns (Rethink press release at Politics.co.uk).