All in a name

One of the (many) things I find fascinating is the whole mind-body split.  It pervades everything in medicine despite some moves to erase that theory.  It is most obvious in Anaesthetics and notions of pain and pain control.  Only recently has it been acknowledged that pain has a physiological element (a response to a stressor) as well as a psychological component.  Even previous ideas of left-side vs right-side brain functioning are becoming obsolete.

 "Our Emotional Brains"  

Psychiatry however has long tried to do away with such a notion.  Still, defining certain thought disorders such as schizophrenia still give rise to problems.  I found this especially obvious when reading an old copy of the Lancet.  For anyone with access: *Y. Kim , Renaming the term schizophrenia in Japan. Lancet 360 (2002), p. 9336*

It describes the intense stigma associated with mental illness in Japan.  It appears to be several-fold more intense there than other countries in comparison.  And health-professionals are very rarely involved in such cases because of this.  This does not mean that Japanese health care is less holistic, by no means.  In fact is is a wonderful example of old practice co-existing with new.  The stigma is such that they are seriously thinking about renaming 'schizophrenia' from seishin bunrestsu byo, roughly translated as split-mind disorder to togo shicchou sho which means roughly loss of coordination disorder or integration dysfunction syndrome.  (when written in chinese characters) The trouble comes when pride and honour overtake human well-being.

It is not limited to Japan either.  Another serious misstep is with leaving health-professionals to be the only ones who comment on mental health/disease. Psychiatry is the cinderella of cinderella health services.  The labels we give people, even their diagnoses to some extent depend on a lot of 'soft' variables; social class, sex, age, religion, race. Will this change perception? My gut reaction says no but then I think of an OBGYN example.

Miscarriages were referred as spontaneous abortions for years and years and years.  Now the term miscarriage is in common use and the 'flinch factor' of the word abortion and the politics that inevitably follows is largely avoided. It'll only help if pushes are made to de-stigmatise what is essentially a chemical imbalance. Because that is all we really are, bags of well-connected salty water.

(Other source- Response written by Despriya E.B.R., Nobutada I. Debate over Japanese renaming over term for schizophrenia. Lancet 361 (2003) Issue 9352 p. 181)

3:38:58 PM    

Sildenafil Study on Young Men

Mondaini N., Poncietti R., Di Loro F. et al. A Randomised Double-blind Placebo Controlled Clinical Study on the Efficacy of Sildenafil in Young Healthy Males European Urology. 2001; 39: Supplement No. 5.

A study, carried out in Italy, with 92 healthy male volunteers was published by the medical journal European Urology in 2001. It showed that Sildenafil (Viagra) gave no improvement/worsening in the number of or quality of erections, ejaculation and orgasm quality for said male volunteers.

The men were divided into 2 groups, one would received a placebo, the other Sildenafil. They would remain in one group throughout the clinical trial.  Every volunteer was aware that they had an equal chance of receiving either placebo or Sildenafil and not even the investigators knew which until the end of the trial.  This is to eliminate any investigator bias.

I can't think of anything else to add except that as Christopher Reeve once replied on a TV interview to a rather personal question (I think) after his accident. "It has a mind of it's own."

The abstract is usually available online via Karger Publishers but for some reason this one isn't electronically available yet. Another web source of abstracts is the U.S.A.'s National Library of Medicine- Entrez-Pub Med. (The 'Entrez' part foxed me for some time, I thought it was originally a French site, hilarious)

Dr. Mondaini should be on Graham Norton, but that might just encourage him. I shal say no more, except Em owes me a pint.

3:33:32 PM    

Literature, Arts & Medicine

A wonderful database available to all via New York University. It gives annotations and links on a wide variety of keyword subjects.

3:18:12 PM