The nation’s nursing homes, battered by the coronavirus pandemic, are under more fire for their resurgent reliance on powerful and risky psychiatric drugs and shaky diagnoses of mental illness to treat elderly residents, as well as for the institutions’ inability to safeguard the old, sick, and injured in their care by ensuring their staff are….
Continue ReadingMental Illness
Olympians offer golden insights on the importance of mental health for all
The early coverage of the 2021 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo has been dominated by an unexpected but rising concern — the importance of mental health to our overall wellbeing. Courageous efforts by young women superstars like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka have helped raise consciousness globally about the importance of this issue, especially for….
Continue ReadingAlarms sounding as opioid-overdose crisis worsens, especially with fentanyl
Even as the nation sees cause for optimism in its battle against the coronavirus, our struggles against substance abuse are falling far short of what’s needed. The opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis has worsened significantly during the pandemic and experts are warning that too many of us need to cut back from excess boozing…..
Continue ReadingWith kids’ return to sports, a reminder about serious risks of head trauma
With coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths falling from scary winter highs, the easing of public health measures may see young athletes returning fast to what are supposed to be the fun and educational benefits of organized sports. But will players, and more importantly grownups, ensure that appropriate practices are followed to ensure kids not only….
Continue ReadingBattle to quell coronavirus pandemic opens up yet more troubling divides
The battle to quell the coronavirus pandemic has opened new divides among us — splitting those willing and not to get vaccinated against the disease, those who will adjust easily or not to life when the illness is a less dominant factor, and those who do not recover easily or quickly and struggle long after….
Continue ReadingU.S. collars owners’ outlandish claims for flying ’emotional support’ animals
Um, no, federal regulators have decided: The nation’s skies no longer will be a sort of bad airborne set for a pop psychology version of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Instead, owners of so-called emotional support animals must keep their menagerie off commercial flights. The federal Transportation Department has issued new rules halting….
Continue ReadingVA ripped for ER abuse of suicidal vet and ‘Covid cocktail’ at state homes
Veterans Affairs officials are taking yet more fire over medical services provided at the sprawling agency’s facilities: An internal watchdog ripped a Washington, D.C., VA emergency room for abusing and sending away a mentally troubled patient who then killed himself. And House members demanded to know why institutionalized and elderly vets were treated for Covid-19….
Continue ReadingConcerns spike as police seek to medicalize tactics that end in arrest deaths
The national outage over authorities’ excessive use of force, especially against black men, may take law enforcement, first responders, politicians, and critics into a murky and nightmarish area — call it the unfounded medicalization of official control. Two fatal flash point cases — involving African Americans George Floyd in Minneapolis and Elijah McCain (shown, right)….
Continue ReadingGuns, pot, booze, and ‘benzos’: Big concerns in the pandemic’s home stays
As Americans have hunkered down to safeguard themselves from Covid-19 infection, too many people also have stocked their homes with potentially harmful items — and the nation soon may be reckoning with the health consequences. Will consumers come to regret that officials, locality by locality, deemed “essential” and chose to keep open marijuana shops, gun….
Continue ReadingWith youngsters ages 10 to 14, a tragic and scary spike in suicides
While alarms have been raised about the nation’s ever-increasing numbers of suicides, mental health experts, educators, and medical researchers also are making urgent pleas for grownups to pay heightened attention to the spike in cases in which youngsters are taking their own lives. As the independent, nonprofit Kaiser Health News Service reported: “[S]uicide by children….
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