Study challenges guidelines on art therapy for people with schizophrenia

Referring people with schizophrenia to group art therapy does not improve their mental health or social functioning, finds a study published in the British Medical Journal today.
The findings challenge national treatment guidelines which recommend that doctors consider referring all people with schizophrenia for arts therapies.
Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder which affects as many as one in 100 people at some point in their lives. While antipsychotic medication can reduce symptoms, many people continue to experience poor mental health and social functioning.
Art therapy has been used as an additional treatment for people with schizophrenia, and is recommended in national treatment guidelines, but few studies have examined its clinical effects.
So a team of UK researchers set out to examine the impact of group art therapy for people with schizophrenia compared with an active control treatment and standard care alone.
The study involved 417 people aged 18 or over with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Participants were split into three groups: 12 months of weekly group art therapy plus standard care; 12 months of weekly activity groups plus standard care; or standard care alone.
Art therapy patients were given access to a range of art materials and encouraged to use these to express themselves freely. Activity group patients were encouraged to take part in activities such as playing board games, watching and discussing DVDs, and visiting local cafes. The use of art materials was prohibited.
Outcome measures included global functioning (ability to carry out usual daily activities), mental health symptoms, social functioning and satisfaction with care. Levels of attendance at both art therapy and activity groups were low.
No differences in global functioning and mental health symptoms were found between the three groups, and no differences in social functioning and satisfaction with care were found between art therapy and standard care groups.
The authors conclude: "While we cannot rule out the possibility that group art therapy benefits a minority of people who are highly motivated to use this treatment, we did not find evidence that it leads to improved patient outcomes when offered to most people with schizophrenia."
However, they add that studies of other creative therapies for people with schizophrenia, such as music therapy and body movement therapy, are more promising, and that it may be only when such activities are combined with other interventions that benefits are seen.
In an accompanying editorial, Tim Kendall, Director at the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, suggests that art therapy is unlikely to be of clinical benefit for people suffering from schizophrenia, but it still has great potential for success in the treatment of negative symptoms.
Provided by British Medical Journal

"Study challenges guidelines on art therapy for people with schizophrenia." February 28th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-guidelines-art-therapy-people-schizophrenia.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

Do women with bulimia have both an eating disorder and a weight disorder?

Researchers at Drexel University have found that a majority of women with bulimia nervosa reach their highest-ever body weight after developing their eating disorder, despite the fact that the development of the illness is characterized by significant weight loss. Their new study, published online last month in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, adds to a body of recent work that casts new light on the importance of weight history in understanding and treating bulimia.
"Most patients lose a lot of weight as part of developing this disorder, and all dedicate significant effort, including the use of extreme behaviors, to prevent weight gain," said Jena Shaw, a clinical psychology doctoral student in Drexel's College of Arts and Sciences who was lead author of the new study. "In spite of this, we found that most women also regain a lot of weight while they have bulimia. We want to find out why that is."
Working with Dr. Michael Lowe, a professor of psychology at Drexel, and other collaborators, Shaw examined data from two study populations of women with bulimia, including a group of 78 women who were patients at the Renfrew Center in Philadelphia studied over two years, and a group of 110 women from a Harvard study who were interviewed at six-month intervals for eight years.
"Most of the women we studied reached their highest weight ever after developing bulimia and before remission," Shaw said. A total of 59 percent of women in the two-year study population, and 71.6 percent of women in the eight-year study population, showed this weight history pattern. These weights were even higher than their weights before developing bulimia, despite the fact that their pre-bulimia weights were overall already higher than average.
The researchers also explored group differences between women who reached their highest weight after onset of bulimia, and those whose highest weight preceded the eating disorder. The women who reached a new highest weight during bulimia had generally developed the disorder at an earlier age, and struggled with it for a longer period of time.
These findings add to a body of work led by Lowe that emphasizes the importance of weight and weight history in the outcomes and treatment of bulimia. Lowe's research has quantified relationships between personal weight history and the symptoms and outcomes of eating disorders.
"Bulimia nervosa was first medically described in 1979 among patients whose body weight generally appeared 'normal,' but who, in most cases, had weighed substantially more in the past," said Lowe. "Yet relatively few studies have considered weight history or the fear of becoming overweight again as a possible perpetuating factor for the disorder."
In his eating disorder studies, Lowe has examined a variable called "weight suppression," which is the difference between a person's past highest weight and her current weight. Most people with bulimia have higher weight suppression values than their peers without bulimia. His studies have shown correlations between higher weight suppression in bulimic women and undesired outcomes including greater likelihood of dropping out of treatment, less likelihood of abstaining from binge/purge behaviors, greater weight gain and longer time to remission. Recently, other researchers have found a relationship between weight suppression and metabolism in healthy women, suggesting that people with higher weight suppression must eat fewer calories to maintain their weight than women of similar weight who have always been close to their current weight.
By clarifying the connections between women's weight history and the course of their eating disorder, researchers may identify ways to use productive discussion of weight and weight history to improve treatments, Lowe said.

Provided by Drexel University

"Do women with bulimia have both an eating disorder and a weight disorder?." February 29th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-women-bulimia-disorder-weight.html
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Robert Karl Stonjek

'World searches' - most popular searches on Cambridge Dictionaries and the reasons behind them

Cambridge Dictionaries Online has published a list of the top words and phrases that got the world searching in 2011, with some surprising insights into their popularity.
Words and phrases people search for are frequently affected by major global events: searches for 'tsunami', 'meltdown', 'riot', 'looting', and 'turmoil' all increased dramatically around corresponding events last year, but the words people search for in response to current events are not always as predictable.
When the phone-hacking story erupted in mid-July 2011, there was only a moderate increase in searches for 'hack', but a far more conspicuous spike in searches for 'humble'. Rupert Murdoch used this when he had to face a Commons Select Committee on July 19th, saying: "this is the most humble day of my life".
The phrase 'eat your heart out', already a surprisingly popular search, had a huge increase on May 11th - can this all be due to an episode of Glee in which a character says the line "Eat your heart out, Kate Middleton"?
Dominic Glennon, Reference Systems Manager for Cambridge Dictionaries Online, said: "It may surprise many people, as it does us, that by far the most common search on Cambridge Dictionaries Online for the whole year is actually the word dictionary itself!"
The top ten searches in 2011 were:
1. dictionary 

2. bear 

3. eat your heart out
4. lead 

5. concern 

6. lie 

7. issue 

8. despite 

9. appreciate 

10. schedule
Paul Heacock, Publishing Manager for Cambridge Dictionaries Online, said: "We are delighted that Cambridge Dictionaries Online, a free global resource, is assisting learners in their understanding of the events and language used around them. Cambridge Dictionaries Online was set up in 1999 as a free ELT resource, for learners of English as a foreign language, but has quickly become widely used by both native and non-native English speakers and learners."
In 2011 Cambridge Dictionaries Online had 20 million unique visitors, making over 63 million visits and viewing almost 300 million pages.
More information: To view and search Cambridge Dictionaries Online (free of charge), go to: dictionary.cambridge.org
Provided by Cambridge University Press

"'World searches' - most popular searches on Cambridge Dictionaries and the reasons behind them." February 29th, 2012. http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-world-popular-cambridge-dictionaries.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek