Category Archives: Mental health

Only music reached my wife after dementia hit, says John Suchet

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Ex-ITN presenter tells how Abba transformed Bonnie Suchet as study reveals most carers are unaware of the benefits of music

When John Suchet discovered the effect that music had on his wife Bonnie’s dementia, it was transformational. “She would close her eyes and love it, beat in time to the music with her hands, tap her feet,” he said.

The former ITN newscaster’s wife had lost her ability to speak. She had been locked inside her head, sitting blankly, apparently unable to make sense of the outside world.

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The tactics retailers use to make us spend more – and how they harm the vulnerable

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Online stores draw in shoppers but those with mental health issues are particularly susceptible

As a digital marketer, Emily Ware spends a lot of time online, yet this comes with a risk. Ware has borderline personality disorder, a mental health condition linked with impulsive behaviours. In her case, that’s spending money online.

“At the start of 2020 I was £4,250 in debt with nothing to show for it,” she says. “A good 95% of this was due to impulse spending, from clothes to pub trips to gig tickets. One of the worst was spending £300 on tickets to see Cher on a whim.”

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UK universities fine students £170,000 for Covid rule breaches

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Exclusive: 28 institutions issued fines, with Nottingham University students alone hit for £58,865

Universities fined students more than £170,000 for breaching coronavirus safety rules in the first weeks of the new academic year, a Guardian analysis has found, as students told of struggling to make friends without flouting restrictions.

Twenty-eight institutions fined students for breaking university, local and national Covid rules, including on household mixing, mandatory face coverings and social distancing, according to responses from 105 universities to freedom of information (FoI) requests.

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Putting Trump behind us is like exiting an abusive relationship: it takes time

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Under Trump many had a ‘collective hypervigilance and anxiety of what he might do next’, experts say – so how do we unpack these past four years?

For millions of Americans and nervous election viewers around the world, the month of November has been a seesaw of emotions. Tentatively able to envision a life outside the Trump shadow, many could finally name the mental, emotional and physical toll the past four years have had on them, reflecting on the feelings of depression, insomnia, restlessness and anxiety that, for them, have defined the president’s term in office for so many.

Emboldened by the promise that in a few short months they would no longer have to live in fear of a national security-threatening tweet or Fox News-induced meltdown, millions of people are beginning to process their feelings.

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I’m a survivor! How resilience became the quality we all crave

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During the pandemic it has become a buzzword for successfully steering through adversity. But what exactly is resilience - and can you cultivate more of it?

It was after her block of flats burned down that Sadi Khan thought, finally, things could not get worse. She had married at 19, and for four years her husband had subjected her to horrific violence on an almost daily basis. She had been punched and kicked, financially controlled and constantly told she was stupid; once, a friend arrived at her flat and found her lying unconscious after an attack. So the day she accidentally set fire to her flat while cooking was simultaneously the day she lost everything and the day she started again. “He’s beaten me, I’ve lost everything,” she says. “What more can go wrong?”

Her father arrived the following day, and wanted to take her home. “I think that was the turning point,” says Khan. “When my dad was in front of me, saying: ‘Come home, let me look after you.’ I thought: ‘No, I don’t need looking after. I’m still alive. I burned the flat down, I’m still alive. I’ve been beaten up, I should have been dead five times over, but I’m still alive.’”

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Half of child psychiatrists surveyed say patients have environment anxiety

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Research finds young people in England feel growing distress about the future of the planet

More than half of child and adolescent psychiatrists in England are seeing patients distressed about the state of the environment, a survey has revealed.

The findings showed that the climate crisis is taking a toll on the mental health of young people. The levels of eco-anxiety observed were notably higher among the young than the general population, according to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which has just launched its first resources to help children and their parents cope with fears about environmental breakdown.

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Joker ‘a betrayal’ of mentally ill people, says David Fincher

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Mank director rails at the risk-averse production strategy of major Hollywood studios

Mank director David Fincher has described Todd Phillips’ Oscar-winning Joker as “a betrayal” of mentally ill people.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Fincher was reflecting on Joker’s surprise success at the box office in a wide-ranging attack on the risk-averse production strategy of the major Hollywood studios. Saying that studios “don’t want to make anything that can’t make them a billion dollars”, he also suggested that occasionally “challenging” material can get support, if there is solid previous evidence of commercial potential.

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Video gaming can benefit mental health, find Oxford academics

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Research based on playing time data showed gamers reported greater wellbeing

Playing video games can be good for your mental health, a study from Oxford University has suggested, following a breakthrough collaboration in which academics at the university worked with actual gameplay data for the first time.

The study, which focused on players of Nintendo’s springtime craze Animal Crossing, as well as EA’s shooter Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, found that people who played more games tended to report greater “wellbeing”, casting further doubt on reports that video gaming can harm mental health.

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Cannabis resin now 25% more potent, global study reveals

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Concentrations of intoxicating THC have risen, data from more than 80,000 street drug samples gathered over 50 years shows

Cannabis resin – or “hash” – has increased in strength by nearly 25% over the past half century, a major international study has revealed.

Researchers with the Addiction and Mental Health Group at the University of Bath analysed data from more than 80,000 cannabis street samples tested in the past 50 years in the US, UK, Netherlands, France, Denmark, Italy and New Zealand.

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Viral video of ballerina with Alzheimer’s shows vital role of music in memory

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Music’s primal power for those living with dementia has inspired thousands of YouTube views for a clip of a former dancer

We see a frail and elderly woman in a chair, her eyes downcast. She motions for the music to be turned up, a swelling melody from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, and with a little encouragement her hands begin to flutter. Then suddenly her eyes flash and she’s Odette the swan queen at the misty lakeside, arms raised. She leans forward, wrists crossed in classic swan pose; her chin lifts as if she’s commanding the stage once more, her face lost in reverie.

The woman in the film is Marta Cinta González Saldaña, a former ballet dancer who died in 2019, the year the video was shot. But the clip has gone viral since being posted recently by Spanish organisation Música Para Despertar (Music to Awaken), which promotes the value of music for those living with Alzheimer’s. Many of the details accompanying the video on its journey around the internet have been erroneous. Marta Cinta was not a member of the “New York Ballet” (there’s no such company) or the actual New York City Ballet, but seems to have run her own dance company in the city; the ballerina performing in the intercut video is not her but Ulyana Lopatkina, who is not even dancing Swan Lake but Mikhail Fokine’s The Dying Swan. Yet none of that takes away the impact of watching someone seemingly light up and have their memories unlocked by the power of melody. It’s as if you’re seeing Saldaña inhabit her true self.

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Nearly one in five Covid patients later diagnosed with mental illness – study

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US data shows nearly twice as many diagnoses over three months among those testing positive

Nearly one in five people who have had Covid-19 are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder such as anxiety, depression or insomnia within three months of testing positive for the virus, according to a study that suggests action is needed to mitigate the mental health toll of the pandemic.

The analysis – conducted by researchers from the University of Oxford and NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre – also found that people with a pre-existing mental health diagnosis were 65% more likely to be diagnosed with Covid-19 than those without, even accounting for known risk factors such as age, sex, race, and underlying physical conditions.

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How should you deal with stress in 2020? First, ditch the meditation

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I thought I didn’t have a lot on, but working up disaster scenarios in my head – from the US election to the pandemic – is the closest I have come to a full-time job

The first Wednesday in November is national stress awareness day. This year, that was the day after the US elections – a sick joke that the organisers probably didn’t appreciate, being too busy taking a bath and exercising. It fell in the middle of a week dedicated internationally to stress awareness, which ends today, so you should feel free to go back to the way you were before: highly stressed, but oblivious to it. If you want to remain aware, the best way to measure cortisol, the primary stress hormone, is by analysing your earwax, according to a study from University College London’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Alternatively, you could count the unbelievably stupid things you have done over the week.

Stress is usually considered an internal state – something amiss in your mind that the outside world can perceive only by a slight squeak to your voice. (You might also get a stress headache, but only in an advert.) Really, though, it is where the internal meets the external that the problems start. Distraction, absent-mindedness: none of this would matter if you hadn’t also put your phone in the fridge and your wallet in the bin and set loose a cascade of errors to which catastrophic lateness for everything is the background music.

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‘Don’t stop the music’: songs bring hope to a Nigerian psychiatric unit

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There is a huge mental health treatment gap across Africa, but in one Nigerian hospital, music therapy is having a positive impact

The music comes on – a soft blend of guitar, saxophone, piano – and people sit still at first, then heads start to sway to the sound. Some hum along; mostly they sing, or laugh and dance. At the end, when quiet returns, their mood is assessed – as it was when the session started.

Once or twice a month, Bola Otegbayo brings a team of singers and instrumentalists into this psychiatric unit at University College hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, Nigeria. Otegbayo realised a few years ago that some of her patients were lonely even though their loved ones visited and caregivers provided succour. So she began to share music. Now she is a musicologist alongside her main job as a renal technologist.

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Sean Connery had dementia, his wife reveals

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Micheline Roquebrune says the late James Bond actor’s dementia ‘took its toll on him’

Sean Connery had dementia in his final months, his wife, Micheline Roquebrune, has revealed.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, Roquebrune said: “He had dementia and it took its toll on him. He got his final wish to slip away without any fuss.”

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‘I got a whole new mindset’: the health secrets of people who got much fitter in lockdown

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Many of us have struggled to maintain our fitness in 2020 – but not everyone. Here, four people explain how they improved their sleep patterns, diet and exercise regimes

Before Covid-19, an ordinary evening for Tim Ludford, a charity worker, looked something like this: after-work drinks with colleagues; an Uber home; a takeaway. “Not healthy takeaways, either,” says Ludford, 37, from London. He would polish off a curry for two people before nailing a bag of Maltesers or a packet of biscuits.

Ludford’s relationship with food began to deteriorate after the death from cancer of his father in 2013. “I was unhappy, first of all, and I was bingeing on food and alcohol as a coping mechanism,” he says. “A lot of it was related to my dad, but I was also stuck in a rut and food was an easy way to make myself feel good.” By the time lockdown was introduced, he was severely obese, with a BMI of 40. (A healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9, according to the NHS.) “Sometimes I’d do crazy things,” he says. “If I was on the way to meet someone for dinner, I’d go to KFC on the way. And then I’d eat dinner as well.”

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UK Covid policy for children in detention ‘cruel and inhumane’, says UN expert

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Solitary confinement to stop virus spread increases risk of self-harm and suicide and could have a lifelong impact, M0J warned

The UK government’s policy of allowing children in detention to be locked alone in their cells for up to 23 hours a day under emergency Covid-19 measures is “extreme and inhumane” and could lead to lifelong mental health damage, according to the UN special rapporteur on torture and leading child health experts.

Since March, facilities have been able to keep children as young as 12 confined alone in their cells for all but around 40 minutes a day. The measures, which were put in place to stop potential Covid-19 outbreaks, affect around 500 under 18-year-olds in youth detention and another 4,000 18-21-year-olds held in adult prisons.

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‘Just 15 minutes out every day’: a teenage prisoner’s life during Covid

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One young inmate tells how being locked up alone for hours and not being able to see his family affected his mental health

For five months, 16-year-old Sean* spent around 23 hours a day in his cell. He tried to get through the time by doing puzzles and calling his lawyer, asking her again and again to help him get bail.

When he arrived at the secure training centre (STC) it was already in lockdown. He was just 15. “I had to go into total isolation for the first two weeks, just 15 minutes out every day. It was my first time in custody and at first I thought this is OK, it’s a chance to slow things down. But after two weeks it began to affect me. You couldn’t do anything. I could hear voices calling on the wing, but I only saw the guard.”

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‘Shocking’ hack of psychotherapy records in Finland affects thousands

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Distressed patients flood support services after hack of private firm Vastaamo

The confidential treatment records of tens of thousands of psychotherapy patients in Finland have been hacked and some leaked online, in what the interior minister described as “a shocking act”.

Distressed patients flooded victim support services over the weekend as Finnish police revealed that hackers had accessed records belonging to the private company Vastaamo, which runs 25 therapy centres across Finland. Thousands have reportedly filed police complaints over the breach.

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‘At 47, I discovered I am autistic – suddenly so many things made sense’

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Other people’s lives always seemed more effortless, but it took my daughter’s autism diagnosis to realise why

Until last year I had no idea I was autistic. I knew I was different and I had always been told I was “too sensitive”. But I don’t fit the dated Rain Man stereotype. I’m a CEO, I’m married, I have two children. Autism is often a hidden disability.

Other people made life seem easy and effortless while, before my diagnosis, I always operated with some level of confusion. I was able to achieve a lot and I used to attribute this to the strong work ethic I inherited from my dad but now I have no doubt that he was autistic, too.

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‘Drastic rise’ in Malawi’s suicide rate linked to Covid economic downturn

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Lack of specialist support and growing unemployment are factors in growing mental health crisis, doctors say

One Tuesday morning in March, 48-year-old farmer Lokoliyo Bwanali set off for his maize plot. He never came back. Neighbours discovered his body later in the small field where he had poisoned himself.

“The wife of the deceased said her late husband was under pressure from creditors and was failing to settle his debts,” said Edward Kabango, from Malawi’s Dedza district police department. “The deceased left his home without explaining to his family members where he was heading until he was later found lying dead in a field, a kilometre from his home.”

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