New Horizons: A shared vision for mental health (U.K.)

Please click on the image to magnify it.

To download the entire document (PDF), please click here.

Also see:

Confident Communities, Brighter Futures: A framework for developing well-being (PDF)

Flourishing People, Connected Communities: A framework for developing well-being (PDF)

Realising ambitions: Better employment support for people with a mental health condition (PDF)

Work, Recovery and Inclusion: Employment support for people in contact with secondary care mental health services (PDF)

Mental Health in Scotland

Standing Committee on Public Accounts - Mental Health Services - June 23rd

Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Witness/Agenda:

9:00 - 11:00 am

Department of Health

Mr. Kevin McNamara, Deputy Minister

Re: Mental Health Services

To view the video recording of this session, please click here.

Spring 2010: Stigma and discrimination in health care

Please click on the image to magnify it.

To download the entire issue (PDF), please click here.

Recidivism Drops in Those Supervised by Mental Health Courts

An article published in the June 18th edition of Psychiatric News:

By Aaron Levin

Research on the outcomes of mental health courts is steadily accumulating, and the results show promise, but some critical questions remain unanswered.

Criminal defendants who complete programs supervised by mental health courts are less likely to be rearrested in the following two years, according to a new study by North Carolina researchers appearing in the May Psychiatric Services.

About 72 percent of those who completed the program were not rearrested in that time, compared with just 19 percent of those who were expelled from the program and 37 percent of those who chose to leave, said Virginia Hiday, Ph.D., a distinguished professor of sociology and anthropology, and doctoral student Bradley Ray, M.A., both at North Carolina State University.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Also see:

Nova Scotia's Mental Health Court Program

Officer in the Order of Canada

A posting made on June 19th by daylife.com:

Chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada Michael Kirby is awarded the rank of Officer in the Order of Canada by Canada's Governor General Michaelle Jean at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, June 18, 2010.

Photo credit

John Devlin's Dreams of Cambridge

An article posted today by the BBC:

In the middle of an island in Nova Scotia, Canada, John Devlin has created an idyllic version of Cambridge and Oxford Universities.

But, Canadian-born John [pictured] has not actually built this dream structure. It began as the idea of a damaged mind coping with psychotic episodes.

Therapy came in the form of sketches of the colleges, as a reminder of John's days as a student in Cambridge.

These Dreams of Cambridge are on show until 25 June, 2010 at King's College.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Also see:

John Devlin: Alchemy and Architecture

The Portland (Maine) Identification and Early Referral (PIER) program

Also see:

The Portland Identification and Early Referral (PIER) Program

Center for Psychiatric Research, Maine Medical Center Research Institute

Mental Illness Prevention Finally Gets Support From Science

News from the Lunenburg County Chapter of the SSNS (LCC-SSNS)

Nelson Miguel (left, CMHA Lunenburg/Queens Branch) and Richard Balser (LCC-SSNS) volunteered to host a community booth at the Bridgewater Mall to increase awareness and provide information about mental illness and the possibilities for recovery.

As part of fulfilling its mission, the Lunenburg County Chapter of the SSNS will be hosting a booth at the Bridgewater Mall on a bimonthly basis until December 2010.


A big THANK YOU to all of the businesses who sponsored the LCC-SSNS' Walk The World 2010:


Please click on the image to magnify it.

Review of Mental Health Research (U.K.)

To download the entire publication, please click here.

Also see:

Mental health research is 'incredibly underfunded'

Landmark MRC review of mental health research calls for change

Hospitals told to meet mental health standards

An article posted today by CBC.ca:

Health minister sends letters after AG's report

Nova Scotia's Minister of Health has sent hospitals across the province a reminder about their obligations when it comes to mental health services.

Maureen MacDonald [pictured] has ordered top hospital administrators to comply with seven orders, in a one-page letter sent to all nine of the province's district health authorities.

MacDonald said the directive is a response to criticism levelled against her department in a recent report by the province's auditor general.

"I was surprised when I saw the auditor's report," she said Thursday. "There is no point in having standards if you don't implement and monitor the standards."

Last week, Auditor General Jacques Lapointe released a report that looked at whether Nova Scotians were able to access timely mental health care, no matter where they live in the province.

He said Nova Scotia was failing to meet its standards when treating mental illness, and said there is no plan to fix the situation.

Lapointe also said there was inadequate oversight of the system and no effective monitoring of the standards.

The auditor general's office found that of 538 Nova Scotians who received mental health care in Colchester-Hants counties, the Annapolis Valley and the Capital District Health Authority in Halifax, only 14 per cent of the patients got care that met mental health standards.

MacDonald said the letter — sent by Deputy Minister Kevin McNamara on her behalf — was sent to the CEOs of the health authorities on the same day Lapointe's report was released.


DHAs


"District health authorities are not spending their own money and they're not spending my money, they're spending the public money and they need to be accountable for that," she said.

"I'm accountable for the health care system on the floor of the house of assembly but the district health authorities are accountable to me for how they deliver health care services."

MacDonald said as part of her seven directives, she reminded hospitals they cannot refuse to admit patients simply because they do not live in the district.

"There are no geographic barriers to getting health-care services within the province of Nova Scotia," she said.

The Health Minister said she has not yet heard from any of the health authorities in the week since she issued the directives.

Health authority responds

Peter Croxall, the director of the mental health program in the Capital District Health Authority, said one of the problems is that the standards are vague and hard to measure.

"Full of, really, of too much mental health jargon and not really written in a clear, explicit fashion," he said.

Croxall said statistics show one in five Nova Scotians will develop a mental illness.

That large number makes the issue difficult to address, he said.

"The fact that we only have … four per cent of the health budget, I think you can draw your own conclusions from that," said Croxall.

"I'm not saying that we're doing terribly badly but we certainly could use more resources or a redistribution of resources within health into the mental health area."

Croxall said in his experience, there was nothing to indicate Nova Scotians were getting substandard care, despite the auditor general's findings.

Fatality Inquiry Into the Death of Howard Hyde -- Live Web-Cast and Video Archive

Concluded on June 10th, 2010

Judge Derrick expects to complete her report later this year (2010).

The Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia (SSNS) had standing at this inquiry and was represented by a total of five lawyers, all of whom were working on a pro bono basis. The SSNS thanks Blair Mitchell (lead counsel), Angela Byrne, Michele Cleary, Marion Ferguson, and Sharmi Jaggi.

Howard Hyde

Adapted from the Nova Scotia Department of Justice's Howard Hyde website:

Pursuant to the Fatality Investigations Act, S.N.S. 2001 C. 31

Presiding Judge:
The Honourable Judge Anne Derrick of the Nova Scotia Provincial Court

Inquiry Counsel:
Dan MacRury Q.C., Chief Crown Attorney for the Cape Breton Region

To view archived recordings the closing submissions, please click below:

HYDE INQUIRY ARCHIVE

Also see:

Hyde remembered fondly at close of inquiry

The Howard Hyde inquiry wraps up today (audio, mp3)

Restraint technique led to Hyde's death: lawyer

N.S. inquiry counsel recommends foregoing Tasers to restrain mentally ill

No Tasers on mentally ill: lawyer

Inquiry to wrap up in Nova Scotia jail death

Howard Hyde Inquiry

MENTAL HEALTH AUDIT

An editorial published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

Slippery standards

NOVA Scotia has long pointed out that it’s the only province in Canada with mental health standards.

And yes, adopting those standards in 2003 was certainly a laudable step towards improving mental health services in this province.

Having standards on paper, however, is one thing. Ensuring they’re being complied with, or, more basically, seeking sufficient funding to do so, is another.

The problem, as Auditor General Jacques Lapointe’s 2010 review of mental health services makes painfully clear, is that the Department of Health seems to have done neither.

Mr. Lapointe was unable to assess whether the department had even asked for the money to meet the standards — an estimated $23.5 million — as the department, following instructions from cabinet officials, denied him access to budgetary requests and possible departmental plans to improve accountability.

This is the same problem that led Mr. Lapointe to criticize the government’s "pervasive policy of secrecy" that prevented him from even auditing Nova Scotia Business Inc. and the Industrial Expansion Fund (IEF).

What the auditor general did uncover, looking at mental health standards and services, showed there’s lots of room for improvement.

The four health authorities audited in depth — Capital Health, Colchester East Hants, Annapolis Valley and IWK Health Centre — met all the standards selected for review in just 14 per cent of 388 files.

Meanwhile, some standards were so poorly written that staff at the DHAs were asking the auditor general’s staff for help in interpreting compliance.

Mr. Lapointe also found no way to compare waiting times for mental health outpatients, the only category tracked, across the province. That meant the department was also unable to do so, he added. Not surprisingly, Mr. Lapointe concluded that mental health patient care could be suffering as a result of these problems.

The Department of Health says a new mental health strategy, along with a plan to address meeting the standards, is to begin this fall.

The auditor general has certainly laid out, in convincing detail, just how this needs to be done.

Chronic underfunding

A letter to the editor published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

John McPhee’s worrying page-one article on June 2 refers to the fact that in Nova Scotia only 3.5 per cent of the health budget goes to mental health services. This contrasts sadly with 10 per cent allocated to mental health services in the U.K.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that our mental health services — for adults and the elderly as well as for children and adolescents — are in serious difficulties?

William O. McCormick, psychiatrist, Mental Health Services Bedford/Sackville

Official defends mental health service

An article published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

Provincial official says officials know system needs more resources

By John McPhee, Health Reporter

Mental health providers are doing the best they can with limited resources for Nova Scotians, the acting head of mental health services for the province said Thursday.

Faizal Nanji was responding to the auditor general’s report released Wednesday. It highlighted failures to meet standards of mental health care.

Jacques Lapointe [pictured] also criticized the standards for being vague and the fact that a clear monitoring system doesn’t exist.

"We knew these standards were something we’d need to aspire to, and really, that a significant amount of resources — financial, human capital — would be required to help bridge the gap," Nanji said in an interview.

But those resources don’t yet exist, he said.

"That’s our constant battle, to continue to advocate from here for increased funding, to make the case," Nanji said. "We’re at a key juncture."

Nova Scotia is the only province to have mental health standards, which were established in 2003.

Lapointe’s office studied 358 cases in three different health authorities and the IWK Health Centre in Halifax in an attempt to gauge how well those standards are being met. Only 14 per cent of those cases met all of the standards the auditor general selected for testing.

For example, when a doctor refers a patient to mental health care, that referral should be reviewed within one working day. The auditor general’s office looked at 125 cases in the Capital, Annapolis Valley and Colchester East Hants health districts, and at the IWK. Of those referrals, 41 were reviewed in one day.

As well, a patient accepted into the system should be assessed within 10 working days. Out of 54 cases examined in the three districts and at the IWK, only six people were assessed within that time, the auditor general said.

The Capital district health authority, the IWK and the other health districts targeted in the report have accepted the auditor general’s recommendations.

Lapointe was working with information from a year ago, a Capital health district official said Thursday.

Progress has already been made in some areas that were singled out, said Barbara Hall, vice-president of person-centred services.

The district does keep tabs of wait times and how quickly cases are reviewed, Hall said.

"Some of those systems are not the best. There a lot of manual processes, and we have been working on improving that."

The province’s mental health services department will work with each of the province’s nine health authorities to improve care, Nanji said.

On top of the auditor general’s report, an IWK official told MLAs this week that up to 1,000 families are on a year-long waiting list for mental health services.

"We’re doing the best we can to provide a service that’s good, safe and accessible," Nanji said. "But again, we do need more resources in various forms."

Photo credit

Auditor General's Report - Mental Health Services in Nova Scotia

An excerpt for the Auditor General’s Statement to the Media today:

A second audit covered in this report was hampered to a lesser extent by the same restrictions on information. The Department of Health, under instruction from the Executive Council Office, refused to provide us information on budget requests related to mental health services.

Treatment of mental illness is a significant part of the health care system. Mental illness accounts for over 15 per cent of the disease burden in developed countries, and for 3.4 per cent of the Nova Scotia health budget.

In 2003, Nova Scotia became the first province to implement mental health service standards. The Department was aware at the time that funding levels were inadequate to achieve these standards.

When the standards were introduced, the Department acknowledged it would take five to ten years to fully achieve compliance with them. Seven years later, our audit found that the mental health service standards were met in only 14 per cent of the cases we tested; and there is no evidence of a plan or funding to close the gap.

The Department of Health has failed to meet its legislated requirement to monitor and evaluate the quality of mental health services. The lack of departmental oversight and monitoring significantly increases the risk that the mental health care system will fail the people who need it most.

The Department of Health has accepted our report and agrees with all 19 recommendations. However, the government has a poor record of implementing our recommendations. I would draw your attention to the next chapter of this report - a follow-up on the 82 recommendations we made in June 2007. To date, the government has implemented just 27 per cent of those recommendations. This is the worst performance since we began tracking government response to our recommendations in 2002.

The Department of Health was the subject of 48 of those recommendations, and accepted all but one. Two years later, 34 recommendations - 71 per cent - were still not implemented.

This is a concern given the nature of the 2007 recommendations, dealing with issues like financial and quality controls in nursing homes and equitable placement of seniors in need of care.

To access the entire Auditor General’s Report, please click here (PDF).


Also see:

Lax oversight of mental health standards, N.S. auditor says

Children waiting for mental health services

An article posted today on CBC.ca:

Children and families are waiting up to a year for a routine referral for mental health services at the IWK Health Centre, a group of Nova Scotia MLAs were told Tuesday.

Senior mental health officials told the community services committee that the health system is struggling to keep up with an ever-growing demand for services.

"We have between 700 and 1,000 children and families waiting. It's a moving target so it changes daily," said Susan Mercer, senior director of mental health and addiction services at the IWK, the children's hospital for the Maritimes.

Mercer said it should take no more than three months to get a regular appointment, but people are now waiting anywhere from six months to a year.

Linda Courey, director of mental health and addictions for the Cape Breton District Health Authority, said early diagnosis and treatment can be key.

"If you can identify these symptoms before the first psychotic episode the major decrease in functioning that these kids will experience over the course of their lives and the subsequent demand on the health-care system, you can prevent that. You can have a massive impact," she said.

But in Cape Breton, as in Halifax, only the sickest get help quickly, Courey added.

More money not the answer

New Democrat MLA Maurice Smith [pictured] found the news alarming.

"I just find it overwhelming," he said. "I'm amazed. It seems to me almost like a crisis kind of situation."

Mercer said there are too few resources to meet the demand. Even with more money, she said, there aren't enough mental-health workers to do the work.

"Everybody is struggling to provide adequate mental-health services across the country," Patricia Murray, director of children's services at the Department of Health, told the MLAs.

The government wants to revamp mental-health services across the province. It plans to name the members of a committee tasked to come up with a strategy in the next few weeks.

Also see:

Staff, money woes plague kids’ mental health care

About IWK mental health and addiction services

Tinkerbell, Edwina, and Long-Term Outcomes, Part I

An article posted on May 27th by Psychology Today:

Is recovery really possible?

By Larry Davidson, Ph.D.

If so many people recover from serious mental illnesses, why is it that we don't see them? This is one of the most common questions raised by mental health professionals when confronted with the long-term outcome literature, at least in my experience. That literature suggests that between 45-65% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia - the most severe of the severe mental illnesses - will recover from the disorder over time. This literature has now been around, and consistently replicated, since the 1970's, but still has not made its way into the training of most mental health professionals. So, many mental health professionals, when exposed to this body of research, ask the question above. If so many people get better, then why don't I ever see them? A reasonable enough question, to be sure, and one for which we fortunately have several answers.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Also see:

Tinkerbell, Edwina, and Long-Term Outcomes, Part II


Photo credit

A national settlement has been proposed in the Zyprexa class action

Please click on the images to magnify them.

To view a high resolution version of the second document, please click here.


Also see:

ZYPREXA (OLANZAPINE) CLASS ACTION: NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT APPROVAL HEARING


From Poyner Baxter LLP:

Zyprexa

May 21, 2010

A national settlement has been proposed in the Zyprexa class action. This settlement cannot proceed until it has received court approval. The dates scheduled for the court settlement approval hearings are June 8, 2010 in Ontario, June 14, 2010 in Quebec and June 15, 2010 in British Columbia.

IF YOU OR SOMEONE CLOSE TO YOU TOOK ZYPREXA (OLANZAPINE) PRIOR TO JUNE 6, 2007, PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY AS IT MAY AFFECT YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS AND YOU MAY BE ELIGIBLE FOR COMPENSATION.

To view the full legal notice, click here.

To view the proposed settlement agreement, click here.

A further notice will be published once the settlement has been approved by the courts which will explain how individuals can make a claim.

For further information email classaction@poynerbaxter.com or phone 604 988-6321.

This Web site is offered for information only and is not legal advice. Use of the site and sending or receiving information through it does not establish an attorney-client relationship. No one should act, or refrain from acting, based solely upon this information without seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice. In particular, you should obtain advice about limitation periods as it may affect your right to bring a legal action on your own behalf. Links to and from from this Web site do not state or imply a relationship between Poyner Baxter LLP and the linked entity.

From Siskinds LLP:

UPDATE (May 21, 2010): We are pleased to announce that a settlement has been reached in this action:

• Settlement Agreement - May 5, 2010 [PDF Document]

The next step is to have the settlement approved by the courts. Settlement approval hearings have been scheduled for Ontario on June 8 , 2010, Quebec on June 14, 2010, and British Columbia on June 15, 2010.

• Notice of Settlement Approval Hearings [PDF Document]

Once the settlement has been approved by each of the courts, a further notice will be published which will explain the steps for making a claim.

Rethinking Mental Disorders

An article posted May 20th on Care2.com:

By Kristina Chew

Psychiatric or mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and psychosis are better understood and treated as 'disorders of the brain' according to an article by Tom Insel, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, and Philip Wang, M.D., Deputy Director of NIMH. The article, Rethinking Mental Illness, is published in the May 19th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The authors note that, while there have been many 'insights gained from genetics and neuroscience'---such as twin studies that show high heritability for autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder---such research explains only a 'fraction of the heritability' of mental disorders. (For instance, some182 genes have been identified as linked to eating disorders, and some 100 to autism.) These should rather be seen as 'disorders of brain circuits':

"The genetics of mental illness may really be the genetics of brain development, with different out comes possible, depending on the biological and environmental context."

Other advances in the field of genetics contribute to a reconceptualization of mental disorders. Epigenetics looks at the inherited changes in gene expression caused that are caused by something other than than changes in the underlying DNA sequence; Insel and Wang note that:

"The same twin studies that point to high heritability also demonstrate the limits of genetics: environmental factors must be important for mental disorders......The advent of epigenomics [the study of the factors that control genes], which can detect the molecular effects of experience, may provide a powerful approach for understanding the critical effects of early-life events and environment on adult patterns of behavior."

Further, the authors write that the behavioral and cognitive symptoms that indicate 'mental illness' may actually be the 'late stages' of neurological processes that, if detected at early stages, might be better and more fully treated:

"As a result, interventions, rather than being ameliorative or rehabilitative, could become preemptive or even preventive. But this transformation in diagnosis and treatment, which can be informed by recent progress in cardiovascular disease and cancer, will depend on an intense focus on the genetics and circuitry underlying mental illness to ensure new approaches to detecting risk, validating diagnosis, and developing novel interventions that may be based on alter ing plasticity or retuning circuitry rather than neurotransmitter pharmacology."

As an example, in the past several years, autism has gone from being seen as a psychiatric, and even psychogenic, disorder, to a neurological/neurodevelopmental one, with significant consequences in how autism is conceived of, treated and, too, perceived by the public. Autism was once thought to be caused by bad parenting, by 'refrigerator mothers' who were emotionally withdrawn and 'cold,' and therefore did not 'bond' with their children, who 'withdrew into autism'; the damage wrought to families and individuals by these misconceptions is unmeasurable. Seeing autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder---due, perhaps, to 'abnormalities' in synapses in the brain does change how autistic individuals are see by others.

Similarly, understanding that an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa is biologically based rather than simply putting the blame on parents, on our society's and culture's equating being thin with success, has significant changes on treatment and, again, understanding, and this can make a huge difference in people's (parents, for sure) lives. Societal factors do play a role, but seeing anorexia as biologically based---a recent study of brain imaging has found neurocircuit dysregulation in anorexics---can have real changes for people's lives and, hopefully, for the ultimate outcomes of those diagnosed with these conditions.

Also see:

NIMH Builds New Framework for Understanding Mental Illness

Image credit

Neurocognition and Social Cognition in Schizophrenia Patients: Basic Concepts and Treatment

Please click here to read the description of this book.

Behind the Scenes

Also see:

www.bringchange2mind.org

Duration of untreated psychosis is associated with more negative schizophrenia symptoms after acute treatment for first-episode psychosis

The abstract of an article published in the March 1st edition of
Clinical Psychologist:

Abstract

By Niklas Granö, Jenni Lindsberg, Marjaana Karjalainen, Peter Grönroos, and Ari-Pekka Blomberg

Evidence of association between duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) and negative symptoms of schizophrenia in first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients is inconsistent in the recent literature. In the present study, DUP, schizophrenia symptoms, duration of medication, and diagnosis were obtained from hospital archives in a sample of FEP patients. The sample included 41 first-episode patients who had an ICD-10 schizophrenia spectrum diagnosis (F20-F29) and were treated with antipsychotic medication. Longer duration in days from the first psychotic symptoms to the initiation of antipsychotic medication had a statistically significant positive correlation with mean level of negative symptoms (Spearman's ρ = .38; p < .05). Results suggests that DUP is associated with a higher level of negative symptoms after the onset of adequate antipsychotic treatment. This should be considered in the care of FEP.

Keywords: duration of untreated psychosis; first-episode psychosis; negative symptoms

Posting of this abstract is for the purposes of research into psychosis and schizophrenia.

2010 Road to Recovery Walkathon

Held on Saturday, May 8th, 2010

It's not to late to make a donation!

The Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia’s

2nd Annual Road to Recovery Walkathon

Your participation increased the public’s awareness of schizophrenia and helped raise over $27,500 to support the extensive and crucial work of the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia. THANK YOU!

This year, in addition to the regular pledge sheets, we had online pledging! Walkers were able to set up their own pledge website, send e-mails to friends to request that they to make a pledge for them online, track their online pledges, and much more. To view the online pledging, please visit the 2nd Annual Road to Recovery Walkathon website by clicking here.

Stephen Ayer, executive director of the SSNS, welcoming the walkers.

Learning the chants from Cecilia McRae (left) and Donna Methot!

The 2010 Road to Recovery walkers posing for a group photograph.

The start of the five-kilometre Road to Recovery walk.

On the Road to Recovery!

Preparing for the auction!

Please click on any photograph to enlarge it. Photographs Kim Clark and Guy Methot.

The 3rd Annual Road to Recovery Walkathon will be held on Saturday, May 7th, 2011. For further information, please contact Donna Methot at 462-8658 or send an email to hrmchapterssns@accesswave.ca.

SSNS – Recovery is Possible!

2010 Major Sponsors

2010 Gift-In-Kind Sponsors

Randy Ross

Photography

Province to build housing for mentally ill

An article published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

The Nova Scotia government is spending $8.6 million on new housing units for people recovering from mental illness.

The government says the units are for people who are moving from inpatient care into the community.

The four community living units will consist of 10 bedrooms and living space.

The province says they will be built on the Nova Scotia Hospital property in the Halifax suburb of Dartmouth.

The Capital District Health Authority and the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia are contributing about $1.7 million, bringing the total cost of the project to $10.3 million.

Construction is scheduled to begin this summer.

How many times will the Government of Nova Scotia announce funding for the same project?

Media Advisory from the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia

The Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia’s 2nd Annual Road to Recovery Walkathon

Halifax, May 6th, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia is holding its 2nd Annual Road to Recovery Walkathon on Saturday, May 8th, 2010. The five-kilometre walk begins at 1:00 pm at the Halifax Curling Club, 948 South Bland Street, proceeds north on South Park Street and Bell Road, south on Robie Street, and finishes by returning to the Halifax Curling Club at 2:30 pm via Inglis Street. From 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm there will be refreshments, the presentation of prizes, and entertainment by Stand Up For Mental Health comedians Owen Redden and Shan MacDonald. The guest speaker is Cecilia McRae, president of the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia.

Schizophrenia is not a split personality. It is a complex biochemical brain disorder characterized by one defining symptom – a loss of touch with reality (psychosis). Schizophrenia directly affects 1% of Nova Scotians at some point in their lifetime, and indirectly affects substantially more family members and friends. It is a highly treatable illness that influences the way a person thinks, acts, and perceives their world. With treatment, the majority of people with schizophrenia significantly recover. And the prognosis is getting better as research on the illness progresses, as treatments become more readily available, as people get help earlier, and as mental health laws recognize the urgent requirement for compassionate and effective involuntary treatment.

The Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia provides a community-based network of knowledgeable and dedicated volunteers so desperately needed by many individuals directly affected by schizophrenia, as well as their family members, friends, colleagues, and communities. Held during Mental Health Week, the Road to Recovery Walkathon is an opportunity for the greater community to get involved and to help reduce the stigma so often associated with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

All proceeds from the Road to Recovery Walkathon go to the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia to support the delivery of its crucial and extensive programs and services. For further information, to make a donation, or to make a pledge on behalf of one of the many walkers, visit www.ssnswalk.dojiggy.com.

-30-

Cecilia McRae, Owen Redden, Shan MacDonald, and Stephen Ayer will be available for interviews during the event.


For additional information or to schedule an interview contact:

Dr. Stephen Ayer
Executive Director
Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia
(902) 465-2601
ssns@ns.sympatico.ca

Do I Have Schizophrenia?

Please click here to view a larger version of this video.

First symptoms of psychosis evident in 12-year-olds

An article posted today by Lab Spaces:

Children normally experience flights of fancy, including imaginary friends and conversations with stuffed animals, but some of them are also having hallucinations and delusions which might be the early signs of psychosis.

A study of British 12-year-olds that asked whether they had ever seen things or heard voices that weren't really there, and then asked careful follow-up questions, has found that nearly 6 percent may be showing at least one definite symptom of psychosis.

To read the entire article, please click here.

I thank Terri Vernon for bringing this article to my attention.

Also see:


Etiological and Clinical Features of Childhood Psychotic Symptoms: Results From a Birth Cohort

Childhood Psychotic Symptoms: Etiologic and Clinical Features

Prevalence, treatment, and associated disability of mental disorders in four provinces in China during 2001—05: an epidemiological survey

The abstract of an article published in the June 13th, 2009, edition of The Lancet:

By Prof. Michael R. Phillips, MD; Prof. Jingxuan Zhang, MMed; Qichang Shi, BMed; Zhiqiang Song, BMed; Zhijie Ding, BMed; Shutao Pang, MMed; Xianyun Li, MMed; Yali Zhang, MD; and Zhiqing Wang, BMed

Background

In China and other middle-income countries, neuropsychiatric conditions are the most important cause of ill health in men and women, but efforts to scale up mental health services have been hampered by the absence of high-quality, country-specific data for the prevalence, treatment, and associated disability of different types of mental disorders. We therefore estimated these variables from a series of epidemiological studies that were done in four provinces in China.

Methods

We used multistage stratified random sampling methods to identify 96 urban and 267 rural primary sampling sites in four provinces of China; the sampling frame of 113 million individuals aged 18 years or older included 12% of the adult population in China. 63 004 individuals, identified with simple random selection methods at the sampling sites, were screened with an expanded version of the General Health Questionnaire and 16 577 were administered a Chinese version of the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)-IV axis I disorders by a psychiatrist.

Findings

The adjusted 1-month prevalence of any mental disorder was 17·5% (95% CI 16·6—18·5). The prevalence of mood disorders was 6·1% (5·7—6·6), anxiety disorders was 5·6% (5·0—6·3), substance abuse disorders was 5·9% (5·3—6·5), and psychotic disorders was 1·0% (0·8—1·1). Mood disorders and anxiety disorders were more prevalent in women than in men, and in individuals 40 years and older than in those younger than 40 years. Alcohol use disorders were 48 times more prevalent in men than in women. Rural residents were more likely to have depressive disorders and alcohol dependence than were urban residents. Among individuals with a diagnosable mental illness, 24% were moderately or severely disabled by their illness, 8% had ever sought professional help, and 5% had ever seen a mental health professional.

Interpretation

Substantial differences between our results and prevalence, disability, and treatment rate estimates used in the analysis of global burden of disease for China draw attention to the need for low-income and middle-income countries to do detailed, country-specific situation analyses before they scale up mental health services.

Funding

China Medical Board of New York, WHO, and Shandong Provincial Bureau of Health.

Bold emphasis in the text of the abstract is mine.

Posting of this abstract on the weblog is for the purposes of research into the prevalence and treatment of mental disorders in China.

Also see:

Mental disorders in China underestimated

Media Advisory - Story opportunities during Mental Health Week

A media advisory from the Mental Health Commission of Canada:

CALGARY, April 28 /CNW Telbec/ - Next week is Mental Health Week (May 3 -9, 2010). You can speak with the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) for a national perspective on mental health issues and to find out more about its initiatives. Here are some of the issues the MHCC is tackling:

More than one thousand off the streets

In February 2008 the Federal government allocated $110million to the MHCC to undertake a 4 year research demonstration project looking at mental health and homelessness, called At Home/Chez Soi. The initiative is working in 5 cities across Canada (Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Moncton) to find ways to more effectively help people with mental illness who are homeless.

It is estimated that 25-50% of people who are homeless have a mental illness. Homelessness also costs the system up to $6 billion per year for health, criminal justice and social services.

Stigma: still the biggest barrier

Opening Minds is the MHCC's 10-year anti-stigma/anti-discrimination initiative designed to change the attitudes and behaviours of Canadians towards those living with mental illness. Launched in October 2009, the initiative is the largest systematic effort to reduce the stigma of mental illness in Canadian history. Opening Minds is focusing on three target groups: Youth (early intervention can make an enormous difference in reducing stigma), health care workers (stigma is mostly experienced on the medical front lines) and workforce (many employees choose to go untreated then risk being labeled by their employer).

The stigma of mental illness is one of the key reasons people with mental health issues report they would not seek help. Since more than seven million people will experience mental health problems this year alone in Canada, this is a significant issue.

Developing first Mental Health Strategy for Canadaever Mental Health Strategy for Canada

The MHCC is developing Canada's first ever mental health strategy. After an extensive national public consultation, the Commission released the document Toward Recovery and Well-Being in November 2009, which introduces the Commission's vision for change and the actions needed to address the mental health needs of Canadians. This document forms the framework for what will become Canada's first ever mental health strategy.


The MHCC is a non-profit organization created to focus national attention on mental health issues. It is funded by the federal government but operates at arm's length from all levels of government. The Commission's objective is to enhance the health and social outcomes for Canadians living with mental health problems and illnesses. www.mentalhealthcommission.ca

For further information: Karleena Suppiah, Communications Specialist, (403) 385-4050 (office), (403) 370-3835 (cell), ksuppiah@mentalhealthcommission.ca

Cartoonists should be careful how they portray mental health

An article published in today's edition of The Guardian:

It's not political correctness gone mad. Some things really should be unsayable

By Beatrice Bray [pictured]

Newspaper cartoons can be great. They can say the unsayable. They have licence to push the boundaries of taste. Their images can resonate for years. But Martin Rowson's cartoon "Dressing-up box" (Comment & Debate, 29 March) overstepped the mark.

Rowson had fun depicting different Conservative politicians in fancy dress. They are shown like kids in the playroom. But as one Tory lifts Mrs Thatcher's moth-eaten blue dress, he shouts: "Hey everybody! This is the 'psychotic yet tough union basher' cozzie!"

The use of the word "psychotic" was offensive. You may think this political correctness gone mad, but if you are ill, or have been, you need words to describe your experience to yourself and to others. If for you these words are negative, you will hate yourself. Language can make or break your happiness.

That is why mental health activists do not like psychiatric terms being used as abuse. We want to show the public how to use terms like "schizophrenia", "psychosis" and "bipolar" in the correct way.

For starters, do not use the word "schizophrenia" when you don't mean mental illness – as when, a few years ago, an MP on a Commons committee claimed there was "schizophrenia" within the BBC.

And please allow individuals an identity apart from their illness, so always say "a person with schizophrenia" rather than "a schizophrenic".

In general usage the word "paranoia" means an undue sense of suspicion. It does not mean illness. The psychiatric term "paranoia" involves an extreme sense of persecution.

"Psychosis" is another escapee into the fashionable world. In the street sense it implies wackiness, but some of us need it to report distressing symptoms to doctors in life-threatening crises. We are not always believed.

There are attempts to banish such ambiguity. "Bipolar" is a new term which was introduced to replace the stigmatised "manic depression". This creates a chance to reinvent the illness, but already the new label is becoming tarnished. You cannot separate words from their popular meanings. You have to change attitudes and behaviours as well as words.

Rowson's cartoon is testament to this, even though he does not sound like the kind of man who would want to disfranchise those of us with severe mental health problems.

We were not Rowson's target: Margaret Thatcher was. But just to complicate matters we are now championing the honour of Thatcher even though some of us are leftwingers. We do not think that Thatcher, a dementia sufferer, should face misused words of abuse.

In the mental health world we try not to offend. At conferences we agree to avoid insulting each other with derogatory terms. We are glad that the main party leaders have copied us. All three have signed a compact, drafted by the all-party parliamentary mental health group, on the use of language. This is the first time such an agreement has been reached. It would be appropriate if journalists and cartoonists were to respect this compact.

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