People with psychiatric disorders consume 44.3% of all cigarettes smoked in this country

(Science Update from NIMH - February 18, 2009)

Expert Panel Addresses High Rates of Smoking in People with Psychiatric Disorders

Numerous biological, psychological, and social factors are likely to play a role in the high rates of smoking in people with psychiatric disorders, according to the report of an expert panel convened by the National Institute of Mental Health. The report ... identifies research needed to clarify these factors and their interactions, and to improve treatment aimed at reducing the rates of illness and mortality from smoking in this population.

... 41 percent of people with a psychiatric disorder smoke, about twice the rate (22.5 percent) seen in those without psychiatric diagnoses. People with psychiatric disorders consume 44.3 percent of all cigarettes smoked in this country. The high rate of smoking is an important factor in increased rates of physical illness and mortality in this group.

Despite the high smoking rates, studies of outpatient and hospital care of psychiatric patients reported that less than a quarter of outpatients with psychiatric diagnoses received counseling from their physicians aimed at smoking cessation, and in hospitals, only 1 percent of psychiatric inpatient smokers were assessed for smoking; none of the treatment plans for these patients addressed tobacco use...

• Research suggests that the relationship between depression and smoking may be bidirectional: depression increases the risk of smoking, and chronic smoking increases a person's susceptibility to depression. The same genes may contribute to both.
  
• As many as 70 to 85 percent of people with schizophrenia use tobacco...

To read the full article click here.

Study links TV and depression

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard Medical School looked at the media habits of 4,142 healthy adolescents and calculated that each additional hour of TV watched per day boosted the odds of becoming depressed by 8%. The results don't prove that TV viewing itself causes depression, but that people with the predilection for later development of depression also happen to have a predilection for watching lots of TV. (Los Angeles Times, 2/3/09)

Recovery International support groups

Recovery International offers mental health self-help groups over the phone. There is also an in-person group in Missoula. A testimonial of the method follows. For more information on groups, visit http://www.recovery-inc.org/forum-pdf/Intro_To_RI_Group_Meetings_FAQ.pdf.

For information on phone meetings visit http://www.recovery-inc.org/resources/feb09PhoneMtgs.html

Feel free to call and listen in to see if the group is something you'd like to be involved with. (Note that the calls are not toll-free.)

Missoula in-person meetings: Saturday - 1:30 P.M. - Missoula Public Library, 301 E. Main Street, Board Room inside front door. - Contact Charlotte: (406)825-3063 or 150@recovery-inc.org

Testimonial from Jennifer Englehardt:

"The Recovery mental health self-help group helps me to take charge of my emotions rather than being controlled by fear, anger, or depression. By attending weekly meetings, I have learned to accept myself and to accept the idea that I can rid myself of the harmful thinking and attitudes that had caused me so much pain in the past.

"People of all ages can benefit from Recovery because it provides a firm structural foundation that is most forgiving when mistakes are made. Another thing about the method is that it talks directly to you and then teaches you to talk self-assuredly to yourself. When I first joined my Recovery group, I learned that millions of other people have the same harmful thinking and attitudes that cause people to bring so much agony into their lives. Through the Recovery training, I am now able to tell myself that I have a choice -- I don't have to always be fearful. I don't have to be continually angry. I don't have to suffer debilitating bouts of depression.

"Recovery, Inc. is not a miraculous cure for mental health problems. Life most certainly can and will be stressful at times. I can still get fearful, angry or feel empty but now I have the means –the tools – to change those distressing feelings. Using my Recovery training, I am now able to recognize that these feelings are merely the result of insecure thinking and attitudes.

"I have learned how to change my thinking from harmful, threatening feelings to secure thoughts. The Recovery mental health support group certainly has changed my life for the better. Now I am able to experience the joy of raising my two girls, and receive the love and friendship of my family and friends."

Can Schizophrenia Be Cured Before It Starts?

From Discover Magazine - July, 2008
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/aug/22-can-schizophrenia-be-cured-before-it-starts

Camila Knudsen (not her real name) doesn’t like to recall how her world began changing when she was 14. Background sounds in her suburban neighborhood—lawn mowers, planes, barking dogs—intermingled in a deafening buzz. The cacophony made it hard for her to hear what people were saying or to respond sensibly. “My mind was a blank,” she recalls. “Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t see or hear anything. I’d walk past someone and if they were laughing, I felt like they were laughing at me.” Exhausted, Camila holed up in her room at home and avoided her friends. She wouldn’t shower, and she spent much of her time staring into space.

...a pediatrician referred the Knudsens to William McFarlane, a psychiatrist in Portland, Maine, who had recently launched an experimental treatment program for early-stage mental illness. McFarlane championed a radical view that psychotic illnesses, including schizophrenia, can be prevented by treatment if caught early enough. His program, Portland Identification and Early Referral, or PIER, was a groundbreaking effort to find and treat patients showing early warning signs of psychosis.

...The PIER staff believed that Camille's symptoms, coupled with a history of schizophrenia on both sides of the family, put her at high risk for a full-blown psychotic break with reality. Quick intervention was crucial, McFarlane and his staff stressed, to prevent the onset of major hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. Should Camila become psychotic even once, the lingering effects on her brain could diminish chances for recovery. One of the most crippling features of schizophrenia is that if delusional thinking is left unchecked, it takes over, robbing patients of the ability to recognize—and seek treatment for—their illness. Losing touch with reality puts schizophrenic patients at high risk of job loss, illness, homelessness, and suicide.

The Knudsens began PIER’s recommended treatment, a novel mix of psychotherapy and medication. Camila stuck with the program for four years and her symptoms subsided, slowly at first, but steadily. “You couldn’t tell she has a mental illness now if you tried,” her father says. “She’s going to be a productive member of society.”

...Through PIER’s efforts, McFarlane seems to have kept dozens of patients who once teetered on the edge of psychosis from falling into its grip.

...“Our kids keep getting better and better,” McFarlane says. “Our experience has been that after a couple of years, they don’t need a lot more support.”

Read the full article here: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/aug/22-can-schizophrenia-be-cured-before-it-starts