Developmental Disabilities and Intentional Communities

Early in the 21st century most jurisdictions have closed traditional institutions for persons with developmental disabilities and now promote services and supports designed to achieve “social inclusion”. A social inclusion policy is directed at integrating persons with developmental disabilities in local community services, thereby avoiding the risks of isolation and neglect observed during the institutional era. 

 

Intentional Communities

Ironically, as clearly articulated by Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, contemporary communities often struggle to satisfy their members’ “human needs”: “No doubt our industrial society is out to satisfy all human needs, and its companion, consumer society is even out to create ever newer needs to satisfy; but the most human need – the need to find and fulfill a meaning in our lives – is frustrated by this society. In the wake of industrialization, urbanization tends to uproot man from traditions and to alienate him from those values that are transmitted by the traditions…. Read more>>>>>>>>>>

Depression, Antidepressants and Cognitions: Silent Schemas in the Walking Wounded

This literature review sorts through a variety of cognitive and emotional variables to compare treatment paths and effects for those who suffer from depressive emotional symptoms. After surveying contemporary instruments used to assess depressive thoughts, attention is given to the roles cognitive schemas play in depression. 

 

 Depression

The effects of both medication therapy and cognitive therapies are identified, with special attention to a subset of tenacious, residual, dysfunctional schemas. A case is made to demonstrate the differential effects of medication on moods versus schemas, suggesting that particular negative schemas are more resistant to pharmaceutical treatment than are moods, and that cognitive therapy more effectively addresses and ameliorates the underlying, resistant cognitive schemas. Read more>>>>>>>>>>

Latin America is Prepared to Face the Challenges of an Aging Population?

The occurrence of psychiatric disorders is common in old age, considering that at least 12% of the elderly living in the community has a diagnosable mental disorder, in the case of patients hospitalized for problems of organic type is estimated between 40-50%, and in nursing homes about 70 to 94% (United Nations, 2002).

Aging Population

when asked how older a person with mental illness, the answer is that these patients patient aging has the same characteristics as that of any other person, added to their disease risks, such as visual and hearing impairment, poor dental and oral health, excessive medication, difficulty in detecting associated problems, poor access to medical care and poor research of mental diseases of old age (World Health Organization, 2003). Read more>>>>

Are Eating Disorders a Type of Anxiety Disorder?

One common feature that is observed in most of the patients that suffer from an eating disorder (ED) regardless of the exact diagnosis is excessive anxiety. In Anorexia Nervosa (AN) anxiety is related mainly with perfectionism and the accompanying high self-expectations that the individual has. At the onset of the disorder these expectations are associated primarily with school/university or athletic performance. 

 

Anxiety Disorder

The development of the anorectic symptomatology is usually accompanied with a narrowing of the perfectionism-related anxiety to concerns regarding the body weight/shape as well as the daily caloric intake and the AN “ultimate” goal of rapid weight loss. In Bulimia Nervosa (BN) anxiety is related mainly with low self-esteem and ineffectiveness to retain control over food consumption and body weight. Read more>>>>>>>>>>>

CMV Encephalitis with Brain Stem Involvement without Evidence of CMV Retinitis two Weeks after Initiation of Art

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a double-stranded DNA virus in the herpes virus family that can cause disseminated or localized endorgan disease in patients with advanced immunosuppression. Endorgan disease caused by CMV occurs in patients with advanced immunosuppression, typically those with CD4 T-lymphocyte cell (CD4)counts <50 cells/mm3, who are either not receiving or have failed to respond to antiretroviral therapy (ART). 

CMV Encephalitis

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is found universally throughout all geographic and socioeconomic areas and infects an estimated 40% to 100% of adults by the fourth decade of life. In addition, almost all homosexual men with HIV are coinfected with CMV. In HIV-infected persons, CMV can infect the GI tract, liver, lung, and nervous system. CMV can also infect the retina and is the leading cause of blindness in the HIV population. Read more>>>>>>>>