People with a mental illness die on average about 10-15 years earlier than people without one. The evidence is probably strongest, as it often is, for schizophrenia – because that condition tends to get the most research funding. Ten years ago, Hennekens and colleagues showed that people with schizophrenia had … Continue reading
How do we know that any treatment for mental illness works?
The same as in the rest of Medicine – from the results of randomised controlled trials.
Uncontrolled trials
The simplest way to see if a treatment works is just to give it to some patients. An uncontrolled trial can … Continue reading
It is World ECT protest day on Sat 16th May 2015 and no doubt the usual hoary old myths about ECT being ineffective and causing brain damage will abound. Electro-convulsive treatment, or therapy, is abbreviated to ECT either way. Even though some call it Electro-Shock Treatment, they still call it ECT. ECT is often described as the most controversial treatment in medicine. But it is actually amongst the most effective treatments in medicine. Continue reading
Mental illness and those who suffer from it and even those that treat it are stigmatised.
The ideas challenged in previous blogs – that mental illness does not exist [1], is trivial [2], that treatments don’t work [3], that people with mental illness are somehow to blame for their problems … Continue reading
‘Covering it up’ is a far bigger problem than ‘making it up’…
It is still all too common to see reports or hear suggestions that people with mental illness are not trying hard enough to help themselves, give up too easily etc. etc.
It should go without saying that mental … Continue reading
The tragic deaths of all 150 people on board the Germanwings flight that the 27 year old co-pilot apparently flew into the Alps last Tuesday (17.03.2015) has brought the relationship between mental illness and violence to the fore again. The association has long exercised the public imagination, intermittently reinforced by … Continue reading