May 16, 200611:00 am
posted by Aric Thorpe, MHR
Brain Scan Predicts Response to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Emotional well being directly affects the health of both the mind and body. More and more studies are being published which validate this fact. Recently, a medical team in Pittsburgh conducted a clinical study on the effect that cognitive behavioral therapy has on the physical mind. The study found that the subjects who had depression, those that showed “low sustained reactivity in the subgenual cingulated cortex and high reactivity in the amygdale,” had the greatest amount of benefit after 16 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy. The study was composed of 14 patients (seven men and seven women) with depression and 21 control subjects that had never had depression. The subjects underwent a functional MRI (fMRI) before and after 12 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy. The following is an excerpt of an article about the study:
“Brains scans of depressed people performing emotional processing tasks may help predict those most likely to benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy. By using functional MRI to monitor areas of the brain that are activated or deactivated in response to emotional stimuli, a team at the University of Pittsburgh believes it can detect with reasonable accuracy those for whom it is worth pursuing cognitive behavioral therapy.”
Click here to read “Brain Scan Predicts Response to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy”
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May 11, 20065:27 pm
posted by Aric Thorpe, MHR
Bullying May Keep Overweight Kids Off the Playgrounds
A recent study found that over weight children 8-18 were found to be bullied which resulted in depression and anxiety. There have been very few studies that have taken a psychometric approach to validating this phenomenon. The study focused on self-reported results of bullying by children rather than parental reports; this makes the study unique. The study included 100 overweight children and found that twenty-five-percent were bulled by peers. The Pearson correlation coefficient analysis found that bullying of the subject children was strongly associated with:
- Depression (r =.40; P<0.001)>
- Anxiety (r =.42; P<0.001)>
- Social physique anxiety (r =.37; P<0.001)>
- Loneliness (r =.63; P<0.001)>
- Physical inactivity (r = .32; P<0.01)>
The following is an excerpt of the article:
“GAINESVILLE, Fla., April 21- Overweight kids can be bullied or taunted right off the playgrounds or ball fields, potentially making their struggles with excess pounds even worse, researchers here said. One quarter of overweight children ages eight to 18 reported significant problems with bullying, and such problems correlated strongly with self-reported depression, loneliness, anxiety, and curtailed physical activity, said Eric A. Storch, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Florida.”
Click here to read Bullying May Keep Overweight Kids Off the Playgrounds
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May 8, 20068:49 am
posted by Aric Thorpe, MHR
Mental Health: Social Anxiety Disorder
Social anxiety disorder is an intense and unnatural fear of being watched by, embarrassed by or judged by others; ultimately it is a severe fear of public humiliation. The difference between a normal level of social anxiety and “social anxiety disorder” is that with anxiety disorder a person’s daily routine is interfered with on a consistent basis keeping them from having a normal social life. Social anxiety is one of the most common anxiety disorders and can be treated with therapy. The following article from WebMD gives comprehensive information on the disorder:
“A person with social anxiety disorder is afraid that he or she will make mistakes and be embarrassed or humiliated in front of others. The fear may be made worse by a lack of social skills or experience in social situations. The anxiety can build into a panic attack. As a result of the fear, the person endures certain social situations in extreme distress or may avoid them altogether. In addition, people with social anxiety disorder often suffer “anticipatory” anxiety– the fear of a situation before it even happens — for days or weeks before the event. In many cases, the person is aware that the fear is unreasonable, yet is unable to overcome it.”
Read “Mental Health: Social Anxiety Disorder”
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