Category: Articles
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Depression in Seniors
Read more: Depression in SeniorsThe Los Angeles Times takes look at depression in seniors. When dealing with her older patients, [Dr. Laura] Mosqueda tries to avoid using the term depression — or any others that might indicate a mental problem. People in their 70s, 80s and 90s are intimidated by those words, she says. “I’ll say to them,…
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Is Solitude Good for You?
Read more: Is Solitude Good for You?Also from the NYT, Embracing a Life of Solitude, a look at extreme, off-the-grid, away-from-everything loner living. His infrequent visitors would ask things like “What are you going to do if a coconut falls on your head?” — given that the nearest doctor was hundreds of miles away. “I said, ‘Oh my, if I think…
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Patients Know Best
Read more: Patients Know BestFile under “about time”: In Reporting Symptoms, Don’t Patients Know Best? “Increasingly, scientifically, we believe that whatever Mrs. Smith says is what Mrs. Smith is experiencing, and it’s important to know how patients themselves feel about how they’re doing.”
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Sleepeating
Read more: SleepeatingFrom the NYT, a portrait of a malady: Raiding the refrigerator, but still asleep. Shirley Koecheler, 54, has been a sleepwalker for as long as she can remember. But it wasn’t until she got married that she started eating in her sleep, too. She’d wander into the kitchen — eyes open but asleep — and…
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The Depression Debate
Read more: The Depression DebateA while back, I linked to Louis Menand’s big New Yorker article about the history of depression treatment. Didn’t read it? Here’s a conversation about the piece–The Depression Debate–in a podcast from the magazine’s website. Meds, placebos, Freud, CBT, and depression itself all come under the microscope.