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Vt. struggles to rebuild mental health system

In this Feb. 17, 2005, file photo, the Brattleboro Retreat is seen in Brattleboro, Vt. A Vermont sheriff is expressing frustration and worry over what his deputies are seeing of the mental health system now that the Vermont State Hospital has been closed due to flooding from Irene. Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark wrote to Mental Health Commissioner Patrick Flood to say the system has become a severe burden on his staff and that patients in need aren't getting the care they deserve. Clark writes of one incident at Christmas when a patient was transported from St. Johnsbury to Brattleboro, where there was no bed available in a psychiatric facility. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)

(AP) -- The remnants of Hurricane Irene did what policymakers hadn't been able to accomplish for more than a decade - close the state's antiquated psychiatric hospital.

The storm flooded much of the state Aug. 28, including the complex containing the Vermont State Hospital in the north-central town of Waterbury, but it's still raining down on the mental health system.

It has been felt in the emergency rooms and medical wards of community hospitals, where the state's most acutely mentally ill residents, who formerly would have gone to the Waterbury, have put new stresses on staff.

"I have witnessed a hospital floor I used to be proud to work on ... become an acute, chaotic, stressful environment that is not conducive to productive treatment for any patient," Christina Sclafani, a registered nurse at Burlington's Fletcher Allen Health Care hospital, said in recent testimony to the Legislature.

It's been felt by county sheriffs and their deputies, who find themselves transporting the mentally ill to far corners of the state in search of care, only to end up standing guard round the clock for days in hospital rooms, waiting for a psychiatric bed to open up.

"I've got a great staff, but they're not therapists, they're not mental health counselors, and I don't want them to be," said Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark. When the mental health system has a patient for which it can't find a placement, "someone hits the default button and the sheriff gets called."

Emergency room doctors from other hospitals have told lawmakers of patients assaulting staff members or making threats but being left unguarded when the officer standing watch is called away for an emergency.

Vermont's mental health system had been in cool crisis for more than a decade. The Vermont State Hospital had so many problems it was decertified and had lost federal funding in 2003. Two patient suicides that year were blamed on outdated features and staff failings. One woman hanged herself with an overlooked shoelace, and a man hanged himself with a belt secured in a gap between a bookcase and a wall.

A succession of governors looked for ways to close the hospital, without success.

Gov. Peter Shumlin says he wants to turn the now-hot crisis into an opportunity. He has launched a plan to replace the 54-bed Waterbury hospital with a new, smaller locked facility, and expanded psychiatric wards at two hospitals that have such units. He also wants to move patients deemed eligible to less secure settings like group homes.

"I think we've put together an integrated plan that's going to ensure patients come first, that's going to ensure that we can provide better mental health services, cutting-edge mental health services, that are community based, only using acute beds when we need to," Shumlin said.

Former staff at the Waterbury hospital, many of whom have followed patients to other facilities around the state and have been working away from home for days at a time, argued that they had the special training and experience - and professional synergy between them - to care for the most acutely ill patients.

The state employees union has argued that the shift to a smaller state institution and greater use of psychiatric units in nonprofit hospitals amounts to privatization of what had been considered a crucial government service.

Despite the problems, some people are happy to see the Waterbury hospital closed.

Xenia Williams, a former Waterbury patient who went on to help to care for patients for Washington County Mental Health services, said she recently attended a meeting with five displaced patients.

"All five of them were extremely outspoken about how glad they were to be out of VSH and what a horrible place it was," she said. "The few I've talked to who are sorry it's no longer available are people who appear to have real problems with self-esteem. They've bought the idea that they're some sort of inferior person who doesn't deserve to be treated well."

Vermont's mental health commissioner, Patrick Flood, said he sees a big opportunity for the state.

With Waterbury's patients moved elsewhere, the state suddenly is able to collect the federal Medicaid matching funds that weren't available when they were housed at the decertified hospital.

Under Shumlin's plan, Flood said, the state will be able to reduce the $22.5 million a year it was spending on the Waterbury hospital to $16.7 million, but now draw federal matching money, bringing the total available to about $41 million.

"Now we are going to be able to meet an awful lot of unmet needs in the state," Flood said, "the problems we've had in corrections," with mentally ill residents showing up in Vermont's prisons, "the problems we see on the streets of Burlington with homelessness."

"The idea that we can invest an additional $20 million in services for people with mental illness is amazing. It's what people have been talking about for a very long time," Flood said.

©2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

"Vt. struggles to rebuild mental health system." January 31st, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-vt-struggles-rebuild-mental-health.html

 

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Robert Karl Stonjek

Does Borna disease virus cause mental illness? New study may end two decades of suspicion

Over the past 30 years, numerous studies have linked Borna disease virus (BDV) with mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder and dementia. Genetic fragments and antibodies to this RNA virus, which causes behavior disorders in a range of mammals and birds, have been found to be prevalent in psychiatric patients, but study results have been inconsistent. Now, the first blinded, case-control study to examine this issue finds no association between the virus and psychiatric illness.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and collaborators at seven other institutions in the U.S, Germany and Australia, can be found online at Molecular Psychiatry.

The scientists evaluated 198 patients in California with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, carefully matched each one of them with a healthy control of the same sex, age, region and socio-economic status, and tested blood of patients and controls for the presence of BDV genetic material and antibodies to BDV. The investigators hypothesized that if the virus was, in fact, associated with a psychiatric disorder, genetic evidence of infection would be apparent in blood samples taken at the onset and/or at the peak of a psychiatric episode, and antibody evidence would be detectable several weeks afterward. Blood samples were therefore collected within six weeks of the onset of an acute episode or clinically significant worsening of symptoms and six weeks later to allow for changes in viral load or antibody levels. Not only did the researchers find no relationship between mental illness and bornavirus, they found no evidence of active or historical infection with BDV in any of the subjects.

"Our study provides compelling evidence that bornaviruses do not play a role in schizophrenia or mood disorders," says Mady Hornig, MD, director of translational research at the Center for Infection and Immunity.

In a commentary in the same issue of the journal, Michael B.A. Oldstone, MD, an expert in molecular virology and central nervous system infections at the Scripps Research Institute, observes that the design and experimental procedures carried out in the Hornig study provide a gold standard for investigating links between persistent viral infection and human disease.

CII director, W. Ian Lipkin, MD, senior author of the paper, notes that "it was concern over the potential role of BDV in mental illness and the inability to identify it using classical techniques led us to develop molecular methods for pathogen discovery. Ultimately these new techniques enabled us to refute a role for BDV in human disease. But the fact remains that we gained strategies for the discovery of hundreds of other pathogens that have important implications for medicine, agriculture and environmental health."

Provided by Columbia University

"Does Borna disease virus cause mental illness? New study may end two decades of suspicion." January 31st, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-borna-disease-virus-mental-illness.html

 

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Robert Karl Stonjek

PNAS-published poll finds some Christians find their own political beliefs conflict with Jesus' teachings

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new online poll conducted by a team of three researchers from Stanford University has found that of those who identified themselves as Christians and who also identified themselves as either politically conservative or liberal, in many cases reported that they believed their own political views were not always the same as what Jesus would espouse were he here today to offer his opinions.

The online study was conducted in the United States and included responses from 1,256 people who agreed to take part in the survey in exchange for a donation to a charity of their choosing and a chance to win $100 for themselves. Of those, the researchers focused exclusively on those who said they were Christians, and who self identified themselves as being either politically conservative or liberal. Excluded were those who fell in the middle and those who, oddly enough, thought the Fox News channel was more liberal than the CNN news channel. That brought the sample size down to 474.

In analyzing the results and writing a paper about them, which the research group has published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team found that overall, many people who responded consider themselves conservative Christians, also believe some of their views are at odds with how Jesus would feel. For example, many had strong negative feelings about how best to handle immigration issues, but felt Jesus would be much more liberal in how he would handle things. Also some felt Jesus might be a little more anti-abortion than they are and harsher on same-sex unions. Conversely, many of those who identified themselves as liberal felt that Jesus would likely feel stronger about morality issues than they do and would probably be better about building bridges between those who disagree with them.

The authors write that the purpose of the poll was designed to show that people tend to find it easier to rationalize differences in their beliefs in one area as compared to another when they are part of an identified group. In this case, they say, when people label themselves as conservative or liberal it makes it easier for them to rationalize the gulf between their own beliefs and those they ascribe to the man who symbolizes their religion.

Other results of the poll showed that the majority of respondents of both political leanings believed that Jesus would likely be more likely to help the poor than they are and that the things that mattered most to them would also likely matter the most to Jesus.

More information: How Christians reconcile their personal political views and the teachings of their faith: Projection as a means of dissonance reduction, PNAS, Published online before print January 30, 2012, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1117557109

 

Abstract 
The present study explores the dramatic projection of one's own views onto those of Jesus among conservative and liberal American Christians. In a large-scale survey, the relevant views that each group attributed to a contemporary Jesus differed almost as much as their own views. Despite such dissonance-reducing projection, however, conservatives acknowledged the relevant discrepancy with regard to “fellowship” issues (e.g., taxation to reduce economic inequality and treatment of immigrants) and liberals acknowledged the relevant discrepancy with regard to “morality” issues (e.g., abortion and gay marriage). However, conservatives also claimed that a contemporary Jesus would be even more conservative than themselves on the former issues whereas liberals claimed that Jesus would be even more liberal than themselves on the latter issues. Further reducing potential dissonance, liberal and conservative Christians differed markedly in the types of issues they claimed to be more central to their faith. A concluding discussion considers the relationship between individual motivational processes and more social processes that may underlie the present findings, as well as implications for contemporary social and political conflict.

© 2011 PhysOrg.com

"PNAS-published poll finds some Christians find their own political beliefs conflict with Jesus' teachings." January 31st, 2012.http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-pnas-published-poll-christians-political-beliefs.html

 

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Vacancies for Engineers

Geethananda De Silva

• Machan, There are some vacancies for Engineers in our company due to projects which have already received. Please send CVs if you know persons who like to come and work here. Posts are Project Engineer, Planing Engineer, Surveyor, Quantity Surveyor & Site Engineer mainly.My e-mails are lgbdesilva@yahoo.com and lgbdesilva@gmail.com

The future of health care

A DNA microarray displays gene sequences. ASU researcher Stuart Lindsay is developing a method for sequencing the human genome at a small fraction of the current cost. Credit: ASU Biodesign Insitute

The United States spends more per capita on health care than any other developed nation, and has the highest growth rate in health care costs, as well. In 2009, these costs reached $2.5 trillion, making up almost 1 in every 5 dollars – or 17 percent – of our gross domestic product.

In spite of these expenditures, the U.S. is far from the top of the list in terms of health care quality, efficiency or access. The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. only 37 out of 191 countries for overall health, responsiveness of the health system, and fairness in financing. Life expectancy in the U.S. ranks only 50th in the world, according to the CIA World Factbook.

To address these issues, a group of researchers at ASU are approaching health care from multiple, innovative perspectives. Their goals are to improve human health and well-being while simultaneously reducing the costs of care.

Creating high-value health care

One important reason that health care costs have skyrocketed while quality has not is that our current system is not designed to promote high-value health care, says Denis Cortese, the director of ASU's Health Care Delivery and Policy Program.

“There are a bunch of stakeholders that come to the table to maximize their own sector. It’s like an orchestra. If every player decided they were going to play as loud as they could, they’re not going to make very nice music,” Cortese says.

One factor driving up costs is that not everyone is insured. The law mandates that emergency rooms must treat anyone in need, regardless of whether or not they are insured. While this is good and necessary, Cortese says it encourages the uninsured to wait until they are very sick, and then go to the most expensive place for treatment. With 50 million uninsured Americans, those costs add up quickly.

The way in which health care providers are paid also increases costs, Cortese says.

“We pay money in a fee-for-service environment, which means I make more money if I keep you sick” Cortese says. “We pay doctors and hospitals and nurses more money the sicker you are – just the reverse of what we say we want. We’re not paying people to keep you healthy, we pay them when you’re sick.”

In order to receive payment from the federal health insurance program Medicare, which covers 47 million Americans, health care practitioners must keep extensive documentation of everything they do in treating a patient. This is where the “fee-for-service” concept comes in.

“The sicker you are, the more procedures you’re going to have done, the longer you’re in the hospital, the more money everybody makes. But the patient is getting sicker and we’re not getting the results we want,” Cortese says.

Doctors should be rewarded for keeping people healthy, rather than getting paid based on the tests and procedures they have done to treat a patient, he says.

At the Health Care Delivery and Policy Program, Cortese is working with 16 different organizations that want to provide high-value care for their patients, rather than participate in the fee-for-service model. The program connects these organizations with insurance providers who are willing to pay doctors and hospitals that want to provide better care for their patients.

Some of these health care providers are small, such as a single hospital, while others are large, spreading across multiple states and many different hospitals. All of the organizations want to provide better care at a lower cost to their patients.

“We need that mindset in health care that you’re not going to get paid until you’re producing high-value care,” Cortese says.

Technology to the rescue

One of the challenges in providing better care is that many hospitals and doctors’ offices have been slow to adopt technology that could simplify health care for everyone.

It’s common these days to get current traffic alerts on a smartphone, or to read about breaking news as it happens on Facebook or Twitter. With the capabilities to access instant, real-time information from almost anywhere, it’s surprising that many medical doctors are using outdated information technologies.

“It’s a frequent and bitter joke in the health care field that your average truck driver has better information technologies available to him than a doctor does in the office,” says Michael Birt, director of the Center for Sustainable Health in ASU’s Biodesign Institute.

Birt says that doctors often don’t have a good idea of how their patients are doing over time because no one continuously acquires and records that data.

“You go to a doctor every three months or six months, she tells you what to do, and then you ignore it until you go back again. That’s essentially how our health system works for prevention or primary care,” Birt says.

The center is working to implement technology that monitors a patient’s health over time and feeds that data back to their doctor. This will allow for a more meaningful health assessment than could be achieved in a single visit. That real-time data would also lead to faster diagnoses, and it will help patients recognize behaviors that are negatively impacting their health.

“It will be harder to pretend that something isn’t happening if that data is available,” Birt says.

In addition to improving individual health, a focus on technology and metrics could make health care more affordable and economically sustainable for the country. Birt says having access to current health data would allow doctors to determine a patient’s “biosignature,” or the most effective strategy to tackle that patient’s health issues.

A biosignature is a spectrum of health information that allows a system to know which diagnostic capabilities to use in a way that is cost-effective.

“The problem has been that technologies are often in silos, and our ability to integrate them has been very limited,” Birt says. For example, an X-ray will provide a completely different set of information than a blood test. They both meet a need, but one may be more appropriate than the other in a given situation.

“It’s not just doing the maximum number of tests. It’s doing the right one, at the right time, the right way, and with a cost impact,” Birt says.

Getting personal

Another way to lower costs, as well as reduce suffering, is to detect diseases early – possibly even before symptoms arise. For some diseases, like cancer, early detection can drastically improve the odds of survival.

Joshua LaBaer is the director of ASU’s Center for Personalized Diagnostics at the Biodesign Institute. One of the ongoing projects in his lab is identifying breast cancer biomarkers, which are unique molecular indicators of disease. These biomarkers will allow doctors to detect breast cancer earlier so that treatment can be administered earlier.

Using a new, powerful method for rapidly screening molecules associated with disease LaBaer’s team has identified a broad panel of 28 biomarkers that could aid in early diagnosis. They have also pinpointed more than 30 breast cancer gene targets – including several novel genes – that are involved in drug resistance to a leading chemotherapy treatment.

These gene targets exemplify a common problem in medical diagnosis and treatment. A single disease can affect people in different ways, because of their unique molecular composition.

“If you’ve got brothers and sisters, you’re probably astounded at how different they all are from you,” says Stuart Lindsay, the director of the Center for Single Molecule Biophysics at ASU’s Biodesign Institute. “Though your siblings carry basically very similar genomes, the way in which those genomes are ordered is radically different from child to child. This is the result of a process called meiotic recombination, which sort of throws the Darwinian dice every time a new human is conceived.”

The genome is the sum of a person’s hereditary information, encoded into his or her DNA. Genetic variation can cause two people diagnosed with the same type of cancer to respond differently to the same therapy. For example, the people with the genes identified by LaBaer’s group won’t derive much benefit from tamoxifen as a treatment for breast cancer, even though the drug is a lifesaver for many.

Knowing the genetic makeup of their patients could allow doctors to provide the best possible care for each patient. What’s the catch? Sequencing an entire human genome can cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Lindsay developed a new method of sequencing and reading genomes that is faster and less expensive than other techniques currently available, because it doesn’t rely on chemical reactions. Instead, he uses the electronic properties of DNA to read the genome. He hopes that in five to 10 years, his technology will bring the cost of sequencing down into the double digits.

“The actual reading mechanism is done by passing the DNA through a nanopore,” Lindsay says. A nanopore is a tiny hole, about the size of a single DNA molecule, drilled into in a special silicon diffuser chip. Embedded in the nanopore is a tiny pair of electrodes. As each piece of the genome passes through the nanopore, researchers observe and record its reaction with the electrodes.

“It sounds like magic, but it actually works very well,” Lindsay says.

The ability to easily sequence a person’s genome will allow scientists to develop more personalized and precise therapies for diseases like cancer. Although the process is still expensive, it would ultimately save a lot of money.

“Right now there are cancer therapeutics on the market that cost tens of thousands of dollars per month and, on average, extend a person’s life by a few months. Hidden underneath that average statistic is the fact that one person in a large number goes into complete remission,” Lindsay says.

Investing in precision

If drug companies could profile the genomes of people who respond well to a particular treatment, they could customize treatments to the individual for maximum effect.

However, it’s not yet certain who will invest in the development of these treatments, LaBaer says, as pharmaceutical companies are not particularly interested in developing drugs that only work for a small number of people.

“If you were a pharmaceutical company, which would you rather do – develop a drug like Lipitor that you can give to millions of people who are at risk for heart disease, which is the most common killer in our country, or develop a drug for a small subset of women with a particular type of breast cancer?” LaBaer asks.

But there is an incentive for drug companies to invest in precision medicine, which brings us back to Stuart Lindsay’s genome sequencing. The ability to know on a molecular level which patients will respond well to a drug means that drug will have a high response rate. It also means doctors could identify people who won’t respond well to a drug and prevent negative side effects.

Some companies are already beginning to invest in precision. Lindsay’s lab has partnered with Roche, an international pharmaceutical company, and the technology and consulting corporation IBM. Roche will provide support for biochemical activities and IBM will construct the diffuser chips used to read the gene sequence.

“The hope of everyone in personalized medicine is that in some short number of years or decades at the most, this will be how medicine is practiced, and it will be lower-cost and make it much more effective,” Lindsay says.

Provided by Arizona State University

"The future of health care." January 31st, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-future-health.html

 

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Facebook is not such a good thing for those with low self-esteem

(Medical Xpress) -- In theory, the social networking website Facebook could be great for people with low self-esteem. Sharing is important for improving friendships. But in practice, people with low self-esteem seem to behave counterproductively, bombarding their friends with negative tidbits about their lives and making themselves less likeable, according to a new study which will be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

“We had this idea that Facebook could be a really fantastic place for people to strengthen their relationships,” says Amanda Forest, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo. She cowrote the new study with her advisor, Joanne Wood. The two are generally interested in self-esteem, and how self-esteem affects the kinds of emotions people express. People with low self-esteem are often uncomfortable sharing face-to-face, but Facebook makes it possible to share remotely.

In one study, Forest and Wood asked students how they feel about Facebook. People with low self-esteem were more likely to think that Facebook provided an opportunity to connect with other people, and to perceive it as a safe place that reduces the risk of awkward social situations.

The researchers also investigated what students actually wrote on Facebook. They asked the students for their last 10 status updates, sentences like, “[Name] is lucky to have such terrific friends and is looking forward to a great day tomorrow!” and “[Name] is upset b/c her phone got stolen :@.” These are visible to their Facebook friends, the people in their network.

Each set of status updates was rated for how positive or negative it was. For each set of statements, a coder – an undergraduate Facebook user – rated how much they liked the person who wrote them.

People with low self-esteem were more negative than people with high self-esteem – and the coders liked them less. The coders were strangers, but that’s realistic, Forest says. In earlier research, Wood and Forest found that nearly half of Facebook friends are actually strangers or acquaintances, not close friends.

Forest and Wood also found that people with low self-esteem get more responses from their real Facebook friends when they post highly positive updates, compared to less positive ones. People with high self-esteem, on the other hand, get more responses when they post negative items, perhaps because these are rarer for them.

So people with low self-esteem may feel safe making personal disclosures on Facebook – but they may not be helping themselves. “If you’re talking to somebody in person and you say something, you might get some indication that they don’t like it, that they’re sick of hearing your negativity,” Forest says. But when people have a negative reaction to a post on Facebook, they seem to keep it to themselves. “On Facebook, you don’t see most of the reactions.”

Provided by American Psychiatric Association

"Facebook is not such a good thing for those with low self-esteem." January 31st, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-facebook-good-self-esteem.html

 

Comment:Find my Facebook Consciousness group Here

 

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Accidents don't just happen: New Book on trends and takeaways in injury research

Two esteemed researchers in the field of injury research have published the most comprehensive reference book to date on the methods and approaches underpinning the scientific discipline of injury control and prevention.

Editors Guohua Li, MD, DrPH, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Susan Baker, MPH, ScD (Hon.), professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health– both leaders in the field -- have brought together a team of global experts from public health, medicine, engineering, and behavioral and social sciences to write about the latest advances in theories and methods for understanding the causes, mechanisms, and outcomes of injury as well as the strategies to prevent injuries.

Called a milestone and a "bedrock text" for researchers by the publisher, Springer, this is an essential reference book for anyone interested in violence prevention, emergency medical services, trauma care, risk assessment, crash investigation and litigation, and vehicle, occupational, recreational, and home safety. The cadre of leaders assembled by Dr. Li, who is also professor of Anesthesiology at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Professor Baker deliver a state-of-the-art picture of where the field of injury research stands.

The 36 chapters are written by some of the most accomplished researchers in the world. The book allows the reader to appreciate how far the field of injury research has come since its beginning, as reflected by the following:

Injury is no longer considered a result of bad luck; it is not simply an "act of god".

Injury is predictable, preventable, and treatable, and even in a crash, fall, or shooting, there are effective interventions to lessen the risk, severity, and outcome of an injury.

Injury is now widely recognized as a health problem, and in the field of public health and medicine, the word accident is avoided by mentioning the crash, poisoning, fall, or other injury-producing event.

Injury is the subject of rigorous inquiries and interventions from multiple disciplines.

More information: The kindle version of the book is online as Injury Research: Theories, Methods, and Approaches.

Provided by Columbia University

"Accidents don't just happen: New Book on trends and takeaways in injury research." January 31st, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-accidents-dont-trends-takeaways-injury.html

 

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Body image not always a drag on women's wellbeing

Deakin University psychology researchers have found that body image isn't always a negative experience for women.

As part of her doctoral research, Rachel Chung from Deakin's School of Psychology is exploring women's experiences of their bodies and how this may be connected to how they feel about themselves in different aspects of their lives.

"The prevailing view on body image is that it is almost normal for women to be dissatisfied with their bodies," Ms Chung said.

"Most research on women's body image focuses on negative aspects, such as women's dissatisfaction with their shape and weight, and adverse factors associated with having a poor body image, such as poor self-esteem or an eating disorder.

"I'm interested in finding out how positive aspects of body image are related to women's sense of well-being."

Around 200 women aged 18 to 76 have already completed the survey for Ms Chung's project.

While past studies have highlighted the negative aspects associated with women's body image, Ms Chung's preliminary findings indicate that body image can also be a positive influence on women's lives.

"How women feel about themselves in general is associated with what they think about their bodies and their attitudes toward their physical health," Ms Chung explained.

"Women who were more accepting of themselves—that is they held positive attitudes towards themselves, accepted their good and bad qualities and past life events—reported that they deliberatively invested in a physically healthy lifestyle.

"The results revealed that for one third of women their body image had a positive impact on their emotional states, eating and exercise and sexual experiences. For one third of women, the impact was negative, and for one third there was no impact of body image on these variables.

"Women's attitudes about their body image were also related to their interpersonal relationships. Specifically, women who had more positive relations with others also reported that their body image had less impact on their lives."

Provided by Deakin University

"Body image not always a drag on women's wellbeing." January 31st, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-body-image-women-wellbeing.html

 

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Got creative block? Get out of your office and go for a walk

 

(Medical Xpress) -- The next time you're in need of creative inspiration, try thinking outside the box—or cubicle.

New research by Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks and Suntae Kim of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business shows that engaging in physical acts and experiences enhances creative problem-solving.

"Metaphors of creative thinking abound in everyday use," said Sanchez-Burks, associate professor of management and organizations. "By thinking 'outside the box,' by considering a problem 'on the one hand, then on the other hand' or by 'putting two and two together,' creativity presumably follows. Such prescriptive advice is no stranger within research labs, advertising teams, the halls of higher education or other contexts where pioneering novel approaches to pressing problems are valued. These metaphors suggest a connection between concrete bodily experiences and creative cognition."

Sanchez-Burks and Ross School doctoral student Kim assembled a team of international researchers who conducted five studies with nearly 400 college students to examine the psychological potency of creative metaphors by investigating whether creative problem-solving is enhanced when people literally follow these metaphors.

The studies ranged from requiring participants to generate ideas while first holding out their right hand and then their left hand ("on the one hand, then the other hand") to completing word tasks by either physically sitting inside or outside a box or engage in problem-solving by walking in a rectangular path vs. freely walking ("thinking outside the box") to converging multiple ideas to find solutions while combining two objects ("putting two and two together").

In all five studies, the findings revealed that physically and psychologically embodying creative metaphors promotes fluency, flexibility and originality in problem-solving, Sanchez-Burks said.

"The acts of alternately gesturing with each hand and of putting objects together may boost creative performance," he said. "Literally thinking outside or without physical constraints, such as walking outdoors or pacing around, may help eliminate unconscious mental barriers that restrict cognition.

"We shed new light by demonstrating that embodiment can potentially enlarge, not just activate, the repertoire of knowledge by triggering cognitive processes that are conducive for generating creative solutions. In other words, our body-mind linkages attest not only to processes of knowledge activation, but also knowledge generation. Embodying creative metaphors appears to help ignite the engine of creativity."

The research will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science

 

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Provided by University of Michigan

"Got creative block? Get out of your office and go for a walk." January 31st, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-creative-block-office.html

 

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