In 1997, Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) therapy (Cyberonics, Houston, Texas) was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of epilepsy refractory to antiepileptic medications. In 2005, VNS received FDA approval for treatment-resistant depression refractory to antidepressants, and Cyberonics recently received FDA approval for the clinical study of VNS for rapid cycling bipolar depression. Many researchers continue to investigate the anxiolytic effects of VNS in human and non-human animal models. The author presents a study of VNS effects on anxiety and the capacity of atropine methyl nitrate to attenuate these effects. The results indicate that VNS decreases anxiety in the laboratory animals tested. These findings provide evidence to support the testing and subsequent use of VNS therapy for the treatment of clinical anxiety in humans. Because many therapies that are effective in the treatment of depression effectively treat anxiety, VNS therapy should be effective and approvable for clinical anxiety. This book can serve as a research tool, training mechanism, or surgical guide to the implantation of the vagus nerve stimulating electrode in the laboratory rat. Hopefully, this resource provides information that facilitates FDA approval of VNS for treatment-resistant anxiety, a chronic, devastating and often debilitating illness.

We all share identical properties that mark us out as human beings. Even so, every person is unique: we are not clones. It's the same with depression - or perhaps more properly the depressions (plural) - because they manifest in so many different ways and under different circumstances yet in essence remain the same. This is a simple enough observation, yet there appears to be little understanding of the condition - or conditions - among the general public, who tend to lump together all states of 'feeling miserable' into something to be snapped out of, a disease category to be treated medically, or a feebleness of personality to be disapproved of and dismissed. In this new title from Wyn Bramley, many different views on causation and treatment are explored. The emphasis is on real people's experiences from all aspects of the depressions - sufferers, helpers, family and friends - not a self-help work but an all-encompassing aid to understanding this common condition.

This book explores the development of mental health systems in the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) of Samoa and Tonga through an examination of several policy transfer events from the colonial to the contemporary. Beginning in the 1990s, mental health became an area of global policy concern as reflected in concerted international organisation and bilateral aid and development agendas, most notably those of the World Bank, World Health Organization, and the governments of Australia and New Zealand. This book highlights how Tonga and Samoa both reformed their respective mental health systems during these years, after relatively long periods of stagnation. Using recent scholarship concerning public policy transfer, this book explains these policy outcomes and expands it to include consideration of the historical institutional dimensions evidenced by contemporary mental health systems. This book considers three distinct levels of policy implicated in mental health system transfer processes from developed to developing nations: colonial authority and influence; decolonisation processes; and the global development agenda surrounding health systems. In the process, the author argues that there are in fact three levels of policy change that must be accounted for in examining contemporary policy change. These policy levels include formal policy transfers, which tend to be prescriptive, involving professional problem construction and the designation of appropriate state apparatus for curative or custodial care provision; quasi-formal transfers, which tend to be aspirational and involve policy instruments developed through collaborative, participatory processes; and informal transfers that tend to be normative and include practices by professional actors in delivering service merged with traditional cultural beliefs as to disease aetiology as well as reflecting a deep understanding of the cultural context within which the services will be delivered. This book argues that a renewed focus on the importance of public policy and government institutional capacity is necessary to ensure human rights and justice are secured.

Language plays a major role in our daily lives. Humans are specialized to live in a social environment, and our brains are "designed" to manage interactions with others which are, for the most part, accomplished through words. Language allows us to function both cognitively and interpersonally, and without language there are constraints on our ability to interact with others. Language also plays a major role in that specialized form of interpersonal interaction that we call psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. In that setting we use words to express and communicate meaning clearly, and through spoken language we help our patients to organize and modify their experiences of self and of the world, fostering adaptive change. Like the air we breathe, when our language serves its function it is transparent to us. We notice it most when it fails. When it does fail its basic function, in life and in psychotherapy, it fails to reliably, effectively, and comfortably help us to connect with others, as we deal with the world around us. In Language and Connection in Psychotherapy: Words Matter, Dr. Mary Davis addresses the role of language in our lives, both internally, in creating psychic structure and regulating affect, and interpersonally, in facilitating relationships with the figures that have shaped our development and that inhabit our adult lives. Using clinical material to illustrate, Davis looks at the development of language and its role in creating our personalities, at the life events which can distort our use of language to interact with others, and the ways that language can lead to misunderstanding as well as to understanding. Throughout, Language and Connection in Psychotherapy: Words Matter explores various facets of the ways in which words matter as well as the times when words are important but not sufficient to our ability to communicate interpersonally. Davis suggests that the psychotherapist is a master in bridging the gap between being and saying: she can be conceptualized as an "interpreter," one who turns behavioral language into verbal language, action language into words, emotions into thoughts, who focuses and uses the capacity of words to help us connect both with our internal selves and with others.

Content covers all units for the Level 3 Award in Dementia Awareness and a mix of mandatory and optional units for the Level 3 Certificate in Dementia Care and the Dementia pathway of the Diploma. Content is matched exactly to the new specification for the Dementia units. Written by best-selling author Yvonne Nolan, so learners can be confident they have the expert support they need to succeed. A concise resource with five chapters, so you don't have to buy more than you need. Chapters combine relevant knowledge and competence units to assist transition from Award to Certificate or Diploma. A positive resource that will not only give learners the knowledge they need to complete the course, but also the skills to implement best practice in their setting Engaging case studies and real-life examples bring learning alive, helping candidates to apply their learning.

Once a wealthy and sophisticated European dancer, Elizabeth 'Betty Bromley is now spiraling downward into the abyss that is Alzheimer's disease-a world that relentlessly tightens its grip on the woman's sanity. At one time rich and powerful, Lolita Rimblas is on the brink of losing everything. Fate brings the two women together, and while they fight to hold on to Mrs. Bromley's memories, Lolita struggles to forget her own. Both Mrs. Bromley and Lolita are caught in a vortex of emotional turmoil that fills each day with despair, embarrassment, laughter, and eventually, acceptance. Lolita never imagined herself to be chasing after a dog and cataloguing its feces, preparing a dinner party for a ghost, fending off flashlight attacks in the middle of the night, or defending herself from affronts to her morality and self-esteem. But as days and nights fuse together, the two women develop a bond wrought from need, pity, loyalty, and a love that even Alzheimer's can't break. As Lolita helps Mrs. herself having to choose between following her lifelong dream or listening to the dictates of her unrelenting conscience.