‘OT’ of the Press – Recovering Ordinary Lives 2007

Recovering Ordinary Lives The strategy for occupational therapy in mental health services 2007-2017
This strategy identifies clearly the unique contribution of occupational therapy within mental health services and provides direction for the development of the profession in this field. Three documents are available:
 A vision for the next ten years, the Literature review and Results from service user [...]

Finding the Evidence the Easy Guide

CEBM – Centre for Evidence Based Medicine
Wondering were to start to find the best evidence, STOP, please don’t click on to Google, great for finding a cheap holiday, and Christmas presents at the moment, but use some thought, use your head, and give CEBM a try.
This site guides you through in a few easy steps [...]

Most mental health services users face victimisation, report claims

Another Assault the new report from Mind November 2007
71 per cent victimised in community in last 2 years
64 per cent dissatisfied with authorities’ response to crime reports
Today Mind publishes a shocking new report Another assault (1) exposing the extreme levels of harassment and victimisation experienced by people with mental health problems in the community. Mind’s new research [...]

Learning Disabilities – Current Awareness Nov 2007

Learning Disabilities Evidence Bulletin November 2007
Each month this brings you the latest LD Evidence. This issue looks at mental ill health in people with profound intellectual disabilities, factors influencing the use of hearing aids, and the impact of group CBT on sexually abusive behaviour of men with intellectual disabilities.
If you would like to look at the Archive [...]

NICE & Easy Way to Find Information

NICE Guidance by TOPIC  or by Date
Latest Guidance: Transcranial magnetic stimulation for severe depression  28th Nov 2007(Scroll down to PDF documents)
A Bit About NICE and why it is Useful
Once NICE publishes clinical guidance, health professionals and
the organisations that employ them are expected to take it fully
into account when deciding what treatments to give people.
However, NICE [...]

Two Thirds of People Living in Nursing Homes Have a Form of Dementia

Home from Home Report  November 2007  Quality of Care for people living in care homes.
The Alzheimer’s Society’s Home from Home Report calls for care homes to begin operating as specialist dementia care providers. Research shows a typical person with dementia in a care home spends just two minutes in every six hours socially interacting with [...]

CAMHS – Matters

Maintaining the momentum towards excellent services for children and young people’s mental health November 2007
This report aims to:

raise awareness amongst the board members of both commissioning and providing organisations about the challenges facing child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), and to highlight the present window of opportunity for leaders to respond to these challenges
illustrate [...]

Pandamic Flu

Pandamic Flu  November 2007
Describes the Government’s strategic approach for responding to an influenza pandemic. It provides background information and guidance to public and private organisations developing response plans. It updates and expands health advice and information contained in previous plans issued by UK health departments, and is intended to replace those documents. Supporting guidance includes [...]

Evidence Base for Self Care Support

Research Evidence on the Effectiveness of Self Care Support – DoH – revised 26 November 2007
This report contains a Summary of Studies on Mental Health Conditions, including: Alzheimer’s, Amnesia, Dementia, Behavioural disorder, Bi-polar disorder, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Depression, Eating disorders, Insomnia, and Schizophrenia. (See p.68)
This document provides an evidence base on the effectiveness of self [...]

Testing Times – HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections in the United Kingdom: 2007

Testing Times – HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections in the United Kingdom: 2007
While there have been some encouraging developments in HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention in 2006, the overall picture has worsened. Estimated HIV prevalence increased to 73,000, with up to a third of these HIV infections remaining undiagnosed.

Research Digest Blog

Bit about the author of the Research Digest  BLOG – Dr Christian Jarrett BSc MSc PhD
I’m a writer/editor specialising in psychology and the neurosciences.
I work full-time for the British Psychological Society as inaugural editor/writer of their Research Digest blog and I’m staff journalist on their magazine The Psychologist, which involves writing monthly news, conference reports [...]

Weighty Issue

Weight Loss Drug  19 November 2007,  Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
The weight-loss drug rimonabant increases the risk of anxiety and depression, reported four newspapers (16 November 2007). The reports were based on the findings of an analysis of four clinical trials that found rimonabant led to greater weight-loss than placebo, but was associated with a [...]

HEARTs Beat Harder up North

Coronory Heart Disease Statistics July 2007
“The north and south of Britain stand divided when it comes to anything from property prices to obesity. Now the same applies to heart disease and deprivation is to blame.” Kieran Lamb – Fade Library
Full document: Coronory Heart Disease Statistics
This is the 15th ed. of Coronary Heart Disease Statistics produced by the [...]

Mental Capacity Act 2005: Deprivation of liberty safeguards

Mental Health Act 2007  The Mental Health Act 2007 (Explanatory Note), which received Royal Assent in July 2007, as well as amending the Mental Health Act 1983, was used as the vehicle for introducing deprivation of liberty safeguards into the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (Explanatory Note, Code of Practice).  This briefing sheet sets out information about the [...]

Librarians and Physicians Working Together

Librarian Support   Journal of the Medical Library Association, October 2007
Physician comments indicated that collaboration between the library faculty and physicians increased the visibility of librarians, making physicians aware that librarians’ searching expertise can improve the relevance of the information retrieved.

Talking Mats and Dementia

Communication and Dementia
How Talking Mats can help people with dementia to express themselves
Joan Murphy, Cindy M. Gray and Sylvia Cox
As dementia progresses, communication deteriorates and it becomes
increasingly diffi cult to ensure that the person’s views are heard. This study
involved 31 people who were each interviewed about their well-being using both
Talking Mats – a system of [...]

‘OT or not to OT’

Recovering Ordinary Lives (2006) from the College of Occupational Therapists  The strategy for occupational therapy in mental health services 2007–2017 A vision for the next ten years.
Occupational therapy at the HEART of mental health service provision in the 21st Century . . .
Delivering what service users want, need and deserve.

Latest Copy of Current Bytes

Current Bytes  Volume 9, Issue 4, November 6th 2007
Keeping you up to date on all the latest health news, with a strong emphasis on mental health. 

New Headgear for Library Staff

  It was decided at the Lantern Centre to issue all staff with warm hats when they had to make the long walk to use the facilities at the Healthport, Kitty is so attached to hers she is even wearing it at the counter.

A Mind Taut with Pain

Times Online Article 21 Nov 2006 follow up article A Mountain in My Mind 7 Aug 2007
Philippa King, who suffers from schizoaffective disorder, captivated Times2 readers last year with the power of her writing. Now, as her book is published, she describes how she fights the stigma of mental illness
“During this time schizoaffective disorder was diagnosed [...]

People With Schizophrenia Are More Logical

Article from The Royal College of Psychiatrists, Nov 2007
Under conditions where common sense and logic conflict, people with schizophrenia reason more logically than healthy individuals, a new study has found.
The researchers were testing a hypothesis that in schizophrenia there is an enhancement of theoretical over practical reasoning. They looked at whether tasks that are correct [...]

Knowledge is the Enemy of Disease

Neurological Conditions Specialist Library from the NLH – National Library for Health
“This resource will provide the highest quality evidence in an easily accessible place, saving the health professional vital time and helping to improve patient care.”
This site aims to gather together the best quality evidence surrounding neurological conditions and make it easily accessible to health professionals. [...]

New Standards for Old People

Standards of Medical Care for Older People Expectations and Recommendations
This document describes the British Geriatrics Society’s recommendations for standards of care for specialist services for older people and those with whom they work. It is envisaged the document will be of value to health professionals, primary care groups, NHS managers, general practitioners and voluntary agencies, [...]

An Apple a Day

Healthy Eating & Depression Following on the theme for the last few days, this is a good guide which could be adapted for patient information aswell as staff. Gives examples of menu ideas and is generally an interesting read.

Bottoms Up!

  Cheers! (2006) Now we are on the subject of healthy living lets look at how drink affects Mental Health.  Here is one example from the report which highlights the UKs relation with alcohol.
‘‘I was a carer for my mother and an elderly relative. I found I was not able to deal with all the [...]

It’s Official Diet is Linked to Healthy Minds

Feeding Minds (2007) Changes to our diet in the last fifty years or so are thought to be an important factor behind recent trends in mental health and mental illness.  This report lays out the evidence linking trends in food consumption with mental ill-health.

A third of men and 15% of women re-offend

Article from Evidence Based Mental Health  (2007) 10, 128 – A third of men and 15% of women discharged from medium secure forensic psychiatry services in the UK re-offend.
Design: Cohort study.
Setting: Medium secure forensic psychiatry services in 7 of 14 regional health authorities in the UK; all admissions between 1989 and 1993.
Population: 1344 people initially [...]

Keep your Cool

 Keep Your Cool Kit If you are thinking of starting an Anger Management Course, take a look at this excellent example for the British Association of Anger Management .  Have a look around the site, interesting statistics and newsflashs from The Times, and Observer for example.

Breaking the Stereotype

‘Fit for Purpose’  
Despite mental health problems, Jonathan Naess maintained a successful career, and insists others can do so too. Now he just has to persuade employers throughout the UK.
Naess was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or manic depression, as it is more commonly known and placed in a locked ward in a psychiatric hospital. While [...]

Tighten Alcohol Laws to Protect the Nations Health

A new report titled Public Health: Ethical Issues published today from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has made headline news in the Guardian newspaper.
The government should consider making alcohol more expensive and reassess its 24-hour drinking laws to curb serious health problems related to excessive drinking, according to a group of experts.
In a review [...]