Six weeks ago, we reported on how Kings County Hospital let a patient die while staffers stood and watched. The patient had psychiatric concerns. We have no idea what happened to the humanity of those staffers (who are hopefully long since gone from the hospital and are having trouble finding gainful employment at a new hospital). We also thought such tragedies would be a wakeup call to all hospitals to re-evaluate their procedures and ensure patient care and monitoring is a top priority.

Sadly, I guess the news didn’t make it down to North Carolina:

A mental patient died after workers at a North Carolina hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom, said federal officials who have threatened to cut off the facility’s funding. […]

An investigator’s report released Monday found that 50-year-old Steven Sabock died in April after he at one point choked on medication and had been left sitting in a chair for close to a day at the facility about 50 miles southeast of Raleigh. Surveillance video showed hospital staff watching television and playing cards just a few feet away.

A state spokesperson said the incident was “isolated,” but how do they really know how isolated such occurrences are (especially those that result not in death, but in near misses and go unreported)? It’s also little consolation to the human being who’s life was lost due to the state’s willful neglect of this patient in their care.

Two incidents in 6 weeks in the country is not a good sign, considering both resulted in people’s deaths. Many will just wave away these deaths since they occurred to people with mental illness. But a human being’s life is not the sum of their illness.

To dismiss such neglect is to dismiss the dignity and sanctity of human life itself.

And if I were you, you should stay away from hospitals like Kings County and Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, NC. In my opinion, these hospitals — and any that treats patients like so much chattel — should be …

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Contrary to popular thinking, medications for child attention deficit disorder (ADHD) are not always the best first-line treatment. Instead, parents should seek out behavioral treatments according to new research presented this past weekend at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

That’s because while medications address ADHD symptoms such as restlessness and fidgeting in a classroom, they don’t address the impairments caused by ADHD. Those include a lack of successful interactions with peers, deficits in reading and math skills, and difficult relations with parents and family members.

Behavioral interventions are not just one-to-one general psychotherapy. They are targeted, specific techniques targeted at the problematic behaviors commonly associated with attention deficit disorder — impulsivity, inattentiveness and hyperactivity. There are over 175 studies showing the effectiveness of these techniques.

But perhaps most controversial is the recommendation to also include parent training in child ADHD treatment. Why should parents also need help if the ADHD is a problem with their child? William Pelham, the lead researcher presenting at the APA convention, suggests these reasons:

Parents of ADHD children have significant stress, psychopathology, and poor parenting skills

ADHD children contribute greatly to parental stress and disturbed parent-child relationships

Parenting styles characteristic of ADHD parents predict long term negative outcomes

Parenting mediates most negative outcomes and needs to be the main focus of intervention

So what are some behavioral interventions parents can try out in the home? Pelham suggests the following:

1. Rules for the home
2. Ignore mild inappropriate behaviors and praise appropriate behaviors (choose your battles)
3. Appropriate commands:
   • Obtain the child’s attention: say the child’s name
   • Use command not question language
   • Be specific
   • Command is brief and appropriate to the child’s developmental level
   • State consequences and follow through
4. Daily charts (e.g., School, Home Daily Report Cards)
5. Premack contingencies (e.g., watch TV or phone time contingent

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Last Friday, The View dedicated an entire show to plastic surgery. In particular, they featured a segment with a 15-year-old girl who needed a breast reduction. In addition, she believed that she also needed liposuction, because, despite working out, she couldn’t get rid of some fat around her stomach. Her mother, concerned that she might develop an eating disorder in trying to lose the weight, okayed the liposuction. What particularly struck a cord was how the show handled the segment (in addition to Mom allowing her young daughter to go under the knife for liposuction!):

• There was no talk about the considerations and consequences of having plastic surgery at a young age or a psychologist to offer insight, for example, on how to tell if a child is psychologically ready for surgery. None of the co-hosts mentioned the real risks of plastic surgery and that some surgeries—up to 20 percent—need to be revised.

• No dialogue of the dangers of kids focusing so much on appearance. Instead of getting liposuction to prevent an eating disorder, perhaps it would be more helpful to avoid emphasizing appearance and altering one’s body to fit an unattainable ideal. Importantly, eating disorders occur because of a complex combination of contributing factors, including genetics, certain personality traits and environment.

• Teasing was glossed over. Granted this show was exclusively about plastic surgery, but what does this teach kids who’re currently being teased over their appearance? That plastic surgery is indeed a panacea; that if you get teased all it takes to make things better is to change your looks? Instead, let’s have a few words about teaching teens to stand up to bullies and be confident without having to tweak their …

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Can video games make you smarter? Well, if you’re a surgeon they can.

Researchers presenting at this weekend’s American Psychological Association annual convention here in Boston demonstrated that surgeons who specialize in minimally-invasive surgery and played video games worked more quickly and performed with less errors than those who didn’t play video games:

In one study of 33 laparoscopic surgeons, researchers found that those who played video games were 27 percent faster at advanced surgical procedures and made 37 percent fewer errors than those who didn’t. Advanced video game skills were also a good way to predict suturing capabilities.

A second study looking at 303 laparoscopic surgeons found that those who played video games requiring spatial skills and hand dexterity performed better at those skills when tested later compared with surgeons who didn’t play videos.

In laparoscopic, or minimally invasive, surgeries, surgeons use small incisions, thin surgical tools, and video cameras.

So next time you go into minimally-invasive surgery, there is another quick quality indicator that might suggest a better outcome for you.

Another study presented at the conference also showed that gamers who played the popular online role-playing game, World of Warcraft, used common problem-solving skills, such as testing, modeling and yes, even using math!

The upshot? Video games can be beneficial in many ways, especially for those budding surgeons out there.

Read the full article: A positive take on video games

Hundreds of online psychology experiments are going on at any given time, many cool and amusing to take part in. They’re great for researchers due to the ease and low cost of finding subjects, and because of that, more data. There are drawbacks, though. The University of Essex’s Department of Psychology points out: “… factors may cause the data to become less clear, for example: everyone uses different types of computers and monitors; we can’t be sure they have understood the instructions properly and we have no idea who is actually doing the experiments.” Debate is ongoing but the popularity of online studies keeps growing too.

By design these studies are ephemeral, disappearing from the web once a deadline is reached or enough data collected. In this Top Ten list we’ve chosen to focus on experiments that are long-term, or if data is no longer collected you can still do the experiment for fun. And they are fun!

1. You Just Get Me is a social psychology perception experiment about personality impressions. Lovely software design, simple to use, great functions and it’s visually appealing. Test yourself on five measure of personality (based on the IPIP-NEO psychology scale) presented in a bubble graph, then try to guess the qualities of other people while they guess yours (check out mine). Blog widgets, credits, invites, personalized t-shirts, member messaging, and a Facebook application: this is more than a social experiment, it’s also social media.

2. Bad Vibes. Sound psychology experiment from Salford University to find out what makes a sound unpleasant. Although its experimental data collection phase is over, with much-publicized results that announced “the worst sound in the …

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A very subtle way to create damage in your child is to turn that child into your parent. This process is called parentification, not to be confused with parenting. Parentification can be defined as a role reversal between parent and child. A child’s personal needs are sacrificed in order to take care of the needs of the parent(s). A child will often give up his/her own need for comfort, attention, and guidance in order to accommodate to the needs and care of logistical and emotional needs of the parent(s) (Chase, 1999). In parentification the parent gives up what they are supposed to do as a parent and transfers that responsibility to one or more of their children. Hence the child becomes parentified. That child is the “parental child” (Minuchin, Montalvo, Guerney, Rosman, & Schumer, 1967).

Types of Parentification

Emotional Parentification: This type of parentification forces the child to meet the emotional needs of their parent and usually other siblings also. This kind of parentification is the most destructive. It robs the child of his/her childhood and sets him/her up to have a series of dysfunctions that will incapacitate him/her in life. In this role, the child is put into the practically impossible role of meeting the emotional and psychological needs of the parent. The child becomes the parent’s confidant. This can especially happen when a woman is not having her emotional needs met by her husband. She can gravitate towards trying to get these needs met from her son. It is as if the son becomes emotionally her surrogate husband. What child does not want to please their parent? An innocent child, is exploited by the parent and it creates a form of …

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After evaluating over 150 studies which examine a potential link between abortion and mental health problems, the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion concluded in a draft report released Tuesday that “…there is no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult women.”

Although, according to their press release, the APA researchers did find that “some studies indicate that some women do experience sadness, grief and feelings of loss following an abortion, and some may experience clinically significant disorders, including depression and anxiety”, they found “no evidence sufficient to support the claim that an observed association between abortion history and mental health was caused by the abortion per se, as opposed to other factors.”

Those studies selected for evaluation were chosen for their methodological soundness; this APA press release says the task force noted that “many” published studies “suffered from serious methodological problems”, particularly when a woman undergoes more than one abortion:

“The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy,” said Brenda Major, PhD, chair of the task force. “The evidence regarding the relative mental health risks associated with multiple abortions is more uncertain.”

…The report noted that other co-occurring risk factors, including poverty, prior exposure to violence, a history of emotional problems, a history of drug or alcohol use, and prior unwanted births predispose women to experience both unwanted pregnancies and mental health problems after a pregnancy, irrespective of how the pregnancy is resolved. Failures to control for these co-occurring

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Massachusetts passes a new children’s mental health law that tries to close the gap in care for children with mental health concerns and open up the screening process to more of them:

The bill requires pediatricians to routinely screen children for behavioral health problems, with parental consent, and for health insurance companies to cover those screenings. It creates a system for school personnel to receive consultation and guidance to recognize and better understand children’s’ mental health needs. And it attacks the “stuck kids” issue by setting up a process to more quickly move children stuck in hospitals because of bureaucratic red tape into more appropriate community-based settings.

I’m all for more mental health screenings (since I think many people walk around with sometimes serious mental disorders without even realizing it). Pediatricians are the professionals best equipped for such screenings, because if a child is already going in to see a psychiatrist or psychologist, then a mental health concern is already suspected.

I hope it also ensures pediatricians are paid for these screenings appropriately, since nothing is more effective as an incentive than being paid for one’s work.

Remarkably, this bill passed the Massachusetts legislature in a single session, virtually unheard of for a bill of this nature:

The substantial unmet need, combined with Torres’ powerful testimony and a strong coalition of families and organizations, helped push the bill through Beacon Hill in one legislative session, a remarkable feat, given its far-reaching effects, said Marylou Sudders, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and a former state mental health commissioner.

Which only goes to show you that, if nothing else, government can be extremely effective when it wants to be in the name of the …

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Today, Furious Seasons brings us the silence of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Thomas Laughren, director of the FDA’s psychiatry products division, on the issue of pediatric bipolar disorder diagnosis. By approving medication for pediatric bipolar disorder, the FDA has, by government decree, sanctioned a brand new diagnostic category out of the blue.

The FDA also suggests that there is widespread agreement about pediatric bipolar disorder and little controversy about the wholesale prescription of the same kinds of medications prescribed for adults (despite there being absolutely zero long-term studies done on pediatric populations to see whether there are developmental effects of these medications on a child’s growing brain and body):

Steven Hyman, a Harvard psychiatrist and former NIMH head, has publicly expressed his concerns about the meds these kids are given: “We don’t know the first thing about safety and efficacy of these drugs even by themselves in these young ages, let alone when they are mixed together.”

In 2006, Thomas Insel, NIMH director, also pointed to the meds being given bipolar kiddos as being a concern, telling the New York Times, “There are not any good scientific data to support the widespread use of these medicines in children, particularly in young children where the scientific data are even more scarce.”

In an op-ed, Larry Diller of UCSF noted: “Biederman shocked the child psychiatric world in 1996 by announcing that nearly a quarter of the children he was treating for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder also met his criteria for bipolar disorder. Up until then bipolar disorder was rarely diagnosed in teenagers and unheard of in prepubertal children. Biederman could justify his findings by simply broadening the semantic definitions of a previously more circumscribed condition contained

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The majority of us are well aware of the pressure to be perfectly slim and sculpted. Now the stress of looking svelte has reached pregnant women, some of whom have begun dieting and exercising excessively to be thin. To describe this latest phenomenon, the press has chosen “pregorexia,” — following in the footsteps of other trendy terms like drunkorexia and orthorexia — and the media and blogosphere have been abuzz about it all week. New Zealand and England in particular have seen an increase in expectant moms restricting their eating and upping their workouts to try to stay trim.

Not surprisingly, like the pressure for the perfect six-pack and toned thighs, the pressure to be a fit, trendy mom trickles down from the media and Hollywood. It’s tough not to pay attention to the images of slim and trim celebrities — with petite frames and tiny baby bumps just days before they’re due — or focus on the magazine covers revealing post-pregnancy weight-loss secrets.

A prime example of these secret solutions comes to us from The New York Daily News . In a celeb’s arsenal, the article explains, you’ll find breastfeeding, the mommy makeover (made up of a tummy tuck, breast lift and liposuction and increasingly requested by moms) and lots of working out. Interestingly, even a C-section can promote weight-loss. According to one doctor:

“Your body is trying to repair itself and that stimulates your metabolism. Plus you’re usually on a liquid diet for the first few days afterward. You can lose about 10 pounds. So if you keep that off, watch your diet and get back to exercising, you can look really good.”

This sends a dangerous, unhealthy message to …

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As if a pregnant Latino woman didn’t have enough to worry about, new research suggests that the more American they are (or try to become), the more depressed they are.

The study was conducted on 439 Latino women seeking pregnancy and post-pregnancy services at public health clinics in San Antonio, Texas. Some were born in the U.S., while others were not. The researchers found that those born in the U.S. and those who asked to conduct their interviews in English (showing an attempt at acculturation).

Also, being single and being pregnant were related to higher depression scores in the study.

It is a stressful situation to be living in another country where you’re trying to fit in, learn the language and culture. So it would seem that this acculturation process might be inherently a little depressing and frustrating for people, no matter what the culture it is they are trying to learn (American, French, German, Brazilian, you name it).

So I wouldn’t say it was the process of “Americanization” so much as it is the process of learning another culture and language, at the same time while one is pregnant (and possibly single).

Read the full story: Is Depression A Part of Being An American?

Given the recent scandal revolving around has-been John Edwards, ABC News delved into what makes politicians tick. Sometimes it’s their own narcissism:

The North Carolina native, who just last week admitted to cheating on his wife with documentary filmmaker Rielle Hunter, told ABC News that his time in the political limelight fed into his self-adoration so much so that his personal life eventually became the latest high-profile sex scandal.

“[My experiences] fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe you can do whatever you want,” said Edwards, admitting that he cheated on his wife, Elizabeth, with Hunter to ABC News’ Bob Woodruff. “You’re invincible. And there will be no consequences.”

“And nothing, nothing could be further from the truth,” added Edwards in a press statement he released later that day, reiterating that his time on the campaign trail made him become “increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.”

Our own Dr. Sam was quoted for the article:

Miami-based psychotherapist Samuel Lopez De Victoria describes narcissists as people who get a high from getting attention and who often are unaware of the chance that they might get caught misbehaving.

“There is a euphoria attached to the relentless feeding of the ego,” he said. “The grandiosity in their own mind tends to make them so vain that an illusion of invincibility is created.”

In turn, De Victoria said, not only does a narcissist become unable to consider the effect his actions could have on his own career or personal life, but it also inhibits him from considering the feelings of those around him.

“[Narcissism] creates an over-amplification of who someone thinks they are, and it creates self-deception,” he said.

“They are insensitive to the reality of events and relationships

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