Janet Dilbeck clearly remembers the moment the music started. Two years ago she was lying in bed on the California ranch where she and her husband were caretakers. A mild earthquake woke her up. To Californians, a mild earthquake is about as unusual as a hailstorm, so Dilbeck tried to go back to sleep once it ended. But just then she heard a melody playing on an organ, "very loud, but not deafening," as she recalls. Dilbeck recognized the tune, a sad old song called When You and I Were Young, Maggie.
Maggie was her mother's name, and when Dilbeck (now 70) was a girl her father would jokingly play the song on their home organ. Dilbeck is no believer in ghosts, but as she sat up in bed listening to the song, she couldn't help but ask, "Is that you, Daddy?"
She got no answer, but the song went on, clear and loud. It began again from the beginning, and continued to repeat itself for hours. "I thought, this is too strange," Dilbeck says. She tried to get back to sleep, but thanks to the music she could only doze off and on. When she got up at dawn, the song continued. In the months to come, Dilbeck would hear other songs. She heard...
The Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center medical team involved in the research and development of an innovative therapy for depression - vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) - is starting a new clinic for patients who have treatment-resistant depression.
The vagal nerve stimulator was approved Friday by the Food and Drug Administration for...
The second part of our special report on complementary health therapies considers which fringe therapies are likely to join the healthcare establishment
Osteopathy and acupuncture have joined the mainstream and other less well-known treatments are following in their wake, with some being used inside the NHS while others are gaining a fan base outside it. So which of the therapies that are ‘bubbling under' will join the establishment, and which will go the way of phrenology and primal scream therapy?
Compulsive behaviors may be side effect of Mirapex, research suggests
Joe Neglia was a retired government intelligence worker with Parkinson’s disease when he suddenly developed what he calls a gambling habit from hell.
After losing thousands of dollars playing slot machines near his California home several times a day for nearly two years, Neglia stumbled across an Internet report linking a popular Parkinson’s drug he used with compulsive gambling.
“I thought, 'Oh my God, this must be it,”’ he said. Three days after stopping the drug, Mirapex, “all desire to gamble just went away completely. I felt like I had my brain back.”
Melbourne, July 12 : People in the West suffer more from mental illness than those in poorer countries, with chances of recovery being higher in places like India than in say New York or London, says an Australian study.
In the most comprehensive survey of the prevalence of schizophrenia worldwide, scientist John McGrath and colleagues from the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research reviewed data from 188 studies published between 1965 and 2002, reported the www.theadvertiser.news.com.au.
Although previous research by McGrath's team found the number of new cases emerging each year were similar in both Western and developing nations, the latest survey said the prevalence was "significantly lower" in poorer countries.
The intense pain of cluster headaches may not be the only worry for those patients suffering from them.
Patients with cluster headaches--severe headaches occurring in clusters of several months and then receding--have a higher rate of anxiety disorders during the time between clusters of headaches and show memory deficits during headache clusters, according to a recent University of Iowa Health Care study.
Ricardo Jorge, M.D., associate research scientist in the UI Department of Psychiatry and lead author of the study, said the impetus for the study was a previously identified link between migraines and depression and anxiety. Cluster headaches, similar to migraines in many ways, were thought to have...
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Abusers of prescription drugs nearly doubled to over 15 million from 1992 to 2003, with abuse among teens tripling, according to a US study released on Thursday.
The report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University suggested that more Americans were abusing controlled prescription drugs than cocaine, hallucinogens, inhalants and heroin combined.
Of 15.1 million abusers of prescription drugs , 2.3 million are teenagers, but youngsters turn to...
June 8, 2005 -- Researchers say there may be a link between estrogen deficiency and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in men.
More than 3 million U.S. adults have OCD, says the National Institute of Mental Health. The disorder involves recurrent, unwanted thoughts or rituals such as counting, checking, cleaning, or washing the hands, which people feel they cannot control.
People with OCD can suffer intensely, but treatment...
BRISTOL, England, July 1 (UPI) -- Researchers at Britain's University of Bristol found low birth weight is associated with adult psychological distress.
The researchers found that children carried full term but weighing less than 5.5 pounds had a 50 percent increased risk of psychological distress in later life, according to the study published in the July issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry.
The study took into account potential confounding factors, such as the father's social class, maternal age and adult marital status.
"The findings suggest that low birth weight at full term has a direct effect on adult mental health, rather than simply...