Category Archives: Health and Medicine

Medical discoveries, health-related news, anatomy and physiology, etc.

Don’t scratch that itch

Eczema, a chronically itchy skin disease diagnosed in childhood, can cause asthma and is a risk factor for smoking, obesity, and alcoholism in adults. It’s estimated that around 35million Americans have eczema. Eczema affects around ten percent of the American population. Inflicting them with patches of extremely itchy, dry, inflamed skin.  When scratched, the patches … Continue reading Don’t scratch that itch

Schizophrenia: The Voices in Your Head

More than 25 million people around the world and about 1% of all people in the western world suffer from schizophrenia at one point in their lives. Half of America’s mental patients are schizophrenic. This mental illness causes delusion, hallucinations, thought disorders, loss of separation between self and non self, and deterioration of everyday mental, … Continue reading Schizophrenia: The Voices in Your Head

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Therapy
Close your eyes. Take a deep breath, hold it for six seconds. Let it out slowly. And again deep breath, hold for six seconds, and out. Every once in a while we need to take the time to just breathe. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy both teach us to take a step back from the situation and look at what it causing us to feel a certain way. I personally wanted to take a look at how we got this form of therapy and its effect on adolescents. For me this was about more than just looking at something different and interesting, but about looking at something that could help me. I have depression and anxiety and if I can find a way to deal with it that works best for me then I’m willing to try. So I looked at the basis of cognitive therapy and some studies to find out what the results were.

Cognitive behavioral therapy has two key scholars Albert Ellis and David Burns. “Ellis proposed an ‘ABC’ model of cognitive behavioral disturbance” and in this model “the letter ‘A’ stands for an activating event, ‘B’ refers to a belief system, and ‘C’ stands for the consequences of A through B”. Ellis theorized that “moods of individuals [or C’s]” could be changed by “a change in how activating events are perceived”. For Burns “the key element [was]…the human tendency to overgeneralize”. Burns formulated Ten Basic Cognitive Distortions, giving a term and a definition. Both Ellis and Burns are considered to be founders of CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy.

For depression and anxiety there are many forms of treatment. “70-80% of patients [however] are not willing to take [antidepressant medication] for a long period of time”. Major depressive disorder is experienced by a large majority of people “and the probability of another episode increases with each relapse or recurrence”. A study done by Catherine S. Ames, Jessica Richardson, Susanna Payne, Patrick Smith & Eleanor Leigh published in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Journal states that “MBCT [mindfulness-based cognitive therapy] is proposed to reduce risk in part through increasing awareness of the ruminative cycles and thinking styles associated with relapse vulnerability”. The results of this study showed that “eleven young people met inclusion criteria…seven completed the course” and due to the small size of the participation group, “analysis of outcome measures [are] limited”. However, “this study has indicated that MBCT with adolescents, targeted at symptoms of low mood, is feasible”.

Overall this form of therapy has progressed farther in recent years than Burns and Ellis’ models and become an actual practice. Taking deep breathes and counting to ten are our usual ways to calm our emotions and now science has started formulating ways for it to be used in treatment of mental illnesses.

Could it be used to treat more than anxiety and depression?
-What can we do to make this treatment more effective?
-Should the basis of it be taught to kids early on to try and prevent depression and anxiety later in life?

Could you be at risk for an overtraining injury?

             If you’re an athlete more isn’t always a good for your body. Overtraining is a common accurance in young athletes. When you overtrain you are more at risk for overuse injuries and/or a burnout. An overuse injury can cause damage to a bone, muscle, ligament, or tendon due to repetitive stress without allowing time for … Continue reading Could you be at risk for an overtraining injury?

Ebola, Not Just Social Media Hype

Ebola’s recent popularity and attention was brought on by the disease becoming more rapidly infectious in western Africa and contaminating Americans returning to the United States. The virus’ effects on the body and its course of infection are intriguing aspects of its nature. As well as the development and origins of the treatment produced by the … Continue reading Ebola, Not Just Social Media Hype