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Providentia

Providentia
Described as a biased look at psychology in the world., this blog presents cutting-edge research, interesting or just weird news items, and snippets on interesting or bizarre episodes in history.

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John Hinckley's Doctors Seeking Easing of Restrictions
2008-06-10 14:00:00
The medical team overseeing treatment for John W. Hinckley Jr. have petitioned for an easing on his current restrictions including obtaining a driver's license, spending more unsupervised time in the community and having extend visits to his mother's home in Virginia. Hinckley, 53, has been held at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. since his March 30, 1981 shooting of President Ronald Reagan. In addition to the shooting of the President, Hinckley also severely injured Press Secretary James Brady and wounded two Secret Service agents. At present, Hinckley is allowed to visit his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia area for six-day periods and is also allowed to leave the hospital with groups of patients. Doctors are seeking to extend these visits to ten-day periods and to double the time Hinckley is allowed to spend unaccompanied in the Virginia community each day, according to prosecutors. The doctors have asked for Hinckley to be allowed more time to do volunteer w...
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Lincoln’s Avenger
2008-06-08 14:00:00
The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 shocked the nation and sparked an intense manhunt for his killer. A detachment of twenty-five Union soldiers led by Lieutenant Edward Doherty pursued John Wilkes Booth and fellow fugitive David Herold across Maryland and eventually tracked them to a farm in Virginia. On April 26, troops set fire to the barn were Booth and Herold were hiding. While Herold eventually surrendered,Booth was fatally wounded in the spine and died three hours later. Despite attempts to take Booth alive, Sergeant Boston Corbett, the soldier who had fired the fatal shot, claimed that he saw Booth taking aim at one of the other soldiers and shot him without orders. While his version of events was disputed by others at the scene, the charges against Corbett were later dropped by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton himself. Killing Booth meant that Corbett's place in the history books was assured (the bullet he used is still on display at the ...

Violent Deaths in the United States
2008-06-05 14:00:00
A report in a recent issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report summarizes data from CDC's National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) concerning violent deaths from 16 U.S. states for 2005. Results are reported by sex, age group, race/ethnicity, marital status, location of injury, method of injury, circumstances of injury, and other selected characteristics. NVDRS collects data regarding violent deaths obtained from death certificates, coroner/medical examiner reports, and law enforcement reports. A total of 15,495 fatal incidents involving 15,962 violent deaths occurred in the 16 NVDRS states included in the report. The majority (56.1%) of deaths were suicides, followed by homicides and deaths involving legal interventions (29.6%), violent deaths of undetermined intent (13.3%), and unintentional firearm deaths (0.7%). Fatal injury rates varied by sex, race/ethnicity, age group, and method of injury. Rates were substantially higher for males than for females and f...
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Violent Deaths in the United States
2008-06-05 14:00:00
A report in a recent issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report summarizes data from CDC's National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) concerning violent deaths from 16 U.S. states for 2005. Results are reported by sex, age group, race/ethnicity, marital status, location of injury, method of injury, circumstances of injury, and other selected characteristics. NVDRS collects data regarding violent deaths obtained from death certificates, coroner/medical examiner reports, and law enforcement reports. A total of 15,495 fatal incidents involving 15,962 violent deaths occurred in the 16 NVDRS states included in the report. The majority (56.1%) of deaths were suicides, followed by homicides and deaths involving legal interventions (29.6%), violent deaths of undetermined intent (13.3%), and unintentional firearm deaths (0.7%). Fatal injury rates varied by sex, race/ethnicity, age group, and method of injury. Rates were substantially higher for males than for fem...
More About: United States , United , Deaths , States , The United States

The Politics of Gender Identity Disorder
2008-06-03 14:00:00
Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is a clinical term referring to a persistent inability to accept one's own gender. Diagnostic criteria include: a persistent and strong cross-gender identification as well as a strong persistent discomfort about ones's assigned sex (gender dysphoria). While primarily diagnosed in children, cases of GID have also been identified in adolescents and adults. Intended as a diagnostic category to address problems experienced by transsexuals and transgendered patients, GID was first included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1980.There is an active controversy concerning use of the GID diagnosis and many activists argue for its removal from the DSM. They maintain that the existence of the diagnosis stigmatizes transgendered people (and, by association, all sexual minorities) by identifying GID as a mental illness. Other transgender activists acknowledge the value of the GID diagnosis for patients seeking sex...
More About: Politics , Gender

The Suicide Song
2008-06-01 14:00:00
It all began in 1933 when a Hungarian composer named Reszo Servess first wrote the melancholy classic, Gloomy Sunday. Born in Hungary in 1899, Servess was a largely self-taught musician with little to show for his career as a songwriter. One of the legends surrounding the song is that it was written in thirty minutes on a gloomy Sunday afternoon after Servess broke up with a girlfriend. The bleak lyrics that he had originally written for the song were later replaced with lyrics by his friend, Ladislas Javor. Even in its revised form, the lyrics ???Gloomy is Sunday/With shadows I spend it all/My heart and I/Have decided to end it all??? conveyed the underlying feeling of hopelessness and despair all too clearly. While Gloomy Sunday attracted little notice at first, most sources agree that the first rash of suicides related to the song occurred in Hungary three years after it was written. A magazine article published in Time Magazine in 1936 described seventeen suicides that had bee...
More About: Song , Suicide

The Suicide Song
2008-06-01 14:00:00
It all began in 1933 when a Hungarian composer named Reszo Servess first wrote the melancholy classic, Gloomy Sunday. Born in Hungary in 1899, Servess was a largely self-taught musician with little to show for his career as a songwriter. One of the legends surrounding the song is that it was written in thirty minutes on a gloomy Sunday afternoon after Servess broke up with a girlfriend. The bleak lyrics that he had originally written for the song were later replaced with lyrics by his friend, Ladislas Javor. Even in its revised form, the lyrics “Gloomy is Sunday/With shadows I spend it all/My heart and I/Have decided to end it all” conveyed the underlying feeling of hopelessness and despair all too clearly. While Gloomy Sunday attracted little notice at first, most sources agree that the first rash of suicides related to the song occurred in Hungary three years after it was written. A magazine article published in Time Magazine in 1936 described seventeen suicides that had b...
More About: Song , Suicide

Intimate Partner Violence in Pregnancy
2008-05-29 14:00:00
A recent issue of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology presents the results of a study examing intimate partner violence (IPV) in pregnancy. Previous studies have shown that homicide may be the most common cause of maternal death. Women who are both pregnant and victims of IPV have high rates of stress, are more likely to smoke or use other drugs, deliver a preterm or low birth weight infant, have an increased likelihood of infectious complications, and are less likely to obtain prenatal care. The violence is also likely to continue after the child is born. Pregnant adolescents may be at even higher risk than their adult counterparts. Children raised in violent homes have both immediate and life long adverse health outcomes as a result of their exposure to IPV. IPV adds substantially to healthcare costs both for direct services to treat the injuries and higher utilization of a wide range of healthcare services. Healthcare providers, particularly those who care for pregnant women, are...
More About: Pregnancy , Partner , Violence

English Neurology Patient Detained in Polish Psychiatric Hospital
2008-05-27 14:00:00
A former salesman and resident of Lancashire has been detained in a psychiatric hospital in Poland after being discovered wandering the streets of Warsaw. Matthew Evans, aged 49, is in the advanced stages of Huntington's disease, a genetic neurological disorder characterizd by dementia and motor dysfunction, apparently travelled alone to Poland earlier this month. According to sources, he was found wandering the streets and taken to hospital just hours after arriving in the city. He then discharged himself three days later and vanished on his way to the airport to fly home. Polish authorities have since found him and admitted him to a hospital until he is well enough to return home, or can be collected by representatives from British social services. His brother Paul, who lives in Devon, has been kept informed of the developments by the Foreign Office and plans to visit Mr Evans as soon as it can be arranged. He said: "I feel so relieved that he's been found and is now bein...
More About: Hospital , English , Detained , Neurology , Patient

English Neurology Patient Detained in Polish Psychiatric Hospital
2008-05-27 14:00:00
A former salesman and resident of Lancashire has been detained in a psychiatric hospital in Poland after being discovered wandering the streets of Warsaw. Matthew Evans, aged 49, is in the advanced stages of Huntington's disease, a genetic neurological disorder characterizd by dementia and motor dysfunction, apparently travelled alone to Poland earlier this month. According to sources, he was found wandering the streets and taken to hospital just hours after arriving in the city. He then discharged himself three days later and vanished on his way to the airport to fly home. Polish authorities have since found him and admitted him to a hospital until he is well enough to return home, or can be collected by representatives from British social services. His brother Paul, who lives in Devon, has been kept informed of the developments by the Foreign Office and plans to visit Mr Evans as soon as it can be arranged. He said: "I feel so relieved that he's been found and is n...
More About: Hospital , English , Detained , Neurology , Patient

The Great Lisbon Earthquake
2008-05-25 14:00:00
It was one of the most destructive earthquakes on record and, quite possibly, changed the course of European history. The epicenter of the earthquake was in the North Atlantic about 200 kilometers southwest of the Portuguese coast and geologists now estimate the magnitude at almost 9 on the Richter scale. There was no warning when the tremors came in three devastating jolts on November 1, 1755 (All Saint's Day) beginning at 9:30 in the morning (local time). Although the earthquake subsided after only ten minutes, the devastation was only just beginning. In the city of Lisbon , fires raged out of control for days and destroyed large sections of the city. People fleeing the city attempted to escape any way that they could including aboard ships that were still moored on the Tagus river. Unfortunately, the tsunami that followed the earthquake battered the coast and rushed up the river thirty minutes after the tremors ended. Many of the low-lying areas were swamped by three great w...
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HIV Dementia Epidemic in Uganda
2008-05-20 14:00:00
A recently released study has showen that 465,000 HIV-positive people in Uganda are experiencing symptoms of dementia, including memory loss, learning problems and behavioural disabilities. The researchers found that dementia symptoms were more prevalent in older adults.???If the rate we saw in our study translates across sub-Saharan Africa, then we are looking at more than eight million people in this region with HIV dementia,??? said Ned Sacktor of the US-based John Hopkins University, who led the study. These findings pose yet another challenge to a country that is already overwhelmed by the health challenges posed by the AIDS epidemic. The researchers tested 78 HIV-positive people attending a clinic in Kampala, Uganda and compared the results with a control group 100 HIV-negative subjects. HIV dementia is treatable and potentially reversible although anti-retroviral medication is largely unavailable in many Third World countries. Sacktor hopes studies like his will highlight the...
More About: Dementia , Epidemic

HIV Dementia Epidemic in Uganda
2008-05-20 14:00:00
A recently released study has showen that 465,000 HIV-positive people in Uganda are experiencing symptoms of dementia, including memory loss, learning problems and behavioural disabilities. The researchers found that dementia symptoms were more prevalent in older adults.“If the rate we saw in our study translates across sub-Saharan Africa, then we are looking at more than eight million people in this region with HIV dementia,” said Ned Sacktor of the US-based John Hopkins University, who led the study. These findings pose yet another challenge to a country that is already overwhelmed by the health challenges posed by the AIDS epidemic. The researchers tested 78 HIV-positive people attending a clinic in Kampala, Uganda and compared the results with a control group 100 HIV-negative subjects. HIV dementia is treatable and potentially reversible although anti-retroviral medication is largely unavailable in many Third World countries. Sacktor hopes studies like his will highlight the...
More About: Dementia , Epidemic

Is There a Stockholm Syndrome?
2008-05-18 14:00:00
On August 23, 1973, an escaped felon named Jan Erik Olsson walked into the Kreditbanken in central Stockholm and attempted to rob it at gunpoint. When Stockholm police arrived on the scene, Olsson opened fire and injured one policeman before taking four bank employees hostage. He demanded that his fellow convict, Clark Olafsson, be brought to the bank along with a sizable ransom in exchange for his hostages' lives. The police went along with Olsson's demands and arranged for Olafsson to be brought to the bank and a communication link to be established with the police negotiators. Over the course of the next five days, Olsson and Olafsson continued to hold the hostages and threatened to kill them if their demands went unmet. Finding the police negotiators to be too unreasonable, the hostage-takers even telephoned then-Prime Minister, Olaf Palme, and attempted to make their demands to him directly. After Palme refused their demands, he received a second call from hostage, Kristi...
More About: Syndrome

What Depressive Symptoms and Disorders Are Linked to Adolescent Suicide?
2008-05-15 14:00:00
A study reported in the April 2008 issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders examines the role of depressive symptoms and disorders as potential predictors of suicidal behaviour in adolescents. The authors used a representative sample of 2464 Norwegian school students (average age 13.7 years) who were initally tested (T1). These same subjects were followed up and reassessed a year later (T2). All subjects who scored significantly high on the depresson questionnaire at the one year mark (T2) were matched with low- or middle-scoring respondents according to age and gender. A subset of 345 subjects were diagnostically assessed by face-to-face interviews (mean age=14.9 years) and then reassessed after five years (T3) using telephone interviews and questionnaires. There were 265 subjects tested with a participation rate of 76.9%. The results indicated that cognitive symptoms were predominant among suicide attempters, regardless of age. Among younger adolescents, suicidal t...
More About: Suicide , Symptoms , Depressive

Homeless Woman Found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity in Fatal Fire
2008-05-13 14:00:00
A homeless woman charged with starting an arson fire that killed four people in a Chicago apartment building last year was found not guilty Friday by reason of insanity. Mary Smith, aged 51, had been accused of starting debris on fire to keep warm in a stairwell of an apartment building on March 10. She was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of aggravated arson and, after a three-day trial, Cook County Circuit Court Judge James ordered her transfer to a mental-health facility where she will be evaluated Evidence in the case included a videotape of an interview with police in which Smith initially denied starting the fire, but later admitted to using matches to ignite debris, including a dollar bill. acqueline Ross, Smith's defense attorney, said of the verdict: "It doesn't mean she didn't do it, [but] she was unable to appreciate the criminality of what she was doing." " [The judge] did what was right in this ca...
More About: Woman , Fire , Reason , Homeless , Insanity

When the Martians Invaded
2008-05-11 14:00:00
It was meant to be a special Halloween night episode of the American radio program, Mercury Theatre on the Air. Directed by 23-year old Orson Welles, the program was an adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic novel The War of the Worlds. The screenplay for the show introduced an unprecedented innovation for American radio: use of a fake newscast to provide listeners with the experience of actually living through an alien invasion. Broadcast from a studio in New York City on October 30, 1938, the program was presented as an ordinary music program that was frequently interrupted by news bulletins. After first describing strange explosions on Mars (Welles played a prominent astronomer), listeners were then told of the landing of a strange "meteorite" in Grover's Mills, New Jersey. The meteorite turns out to be a Martian capsule which then destroys hundreds of onlookers with "heat rays". As the episode continued, more Martian ships land and devastation is unleashed across the entire Un...

How Prevalent is Body Dysmorphic Disorder?
2008-05-08 14:00:00
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental disorder involving excessive preoccupation with imagined or minor bodily imperfections. It has been linked to OCD-spectrum disorders and can manifest itself in s range of ways including anorexia nervosa, substance abuse and suicide. Estimates of actual prevalence vary widely. The April 2008 issue of CNS Spectrums presented the results of a national survey to estimate the prevalence of BDD in the United States. Using a random sample national household telephone survey conducted in 2004, 2,513 adults were contacted, of whom 2,048 qualified for administration of computer-assisted, structured interviews, addressed DSM-IV criteria for BDD. Information on psychological, financial and demographic factors was also collected. Respondents included a higher percentage of women and people >55 years of age than in the US adult population, and a lower percentage of Hispanics. Results showed an estimated prevalence of DSM-IV BDD among respondents as 2....
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Indian Health Ministry Reports 16,000 Student Suicides In The Past Three Ye
2008-05-06 14:00:00
A representative of India’s Health Ministry has reported that over 16,000 school and college students in India have committed suicide in the last three years and announced plans to deal with the problem by reforming the national health care system. According to the ministry, there were 5,857 student suicides in 2006, 5,138 in 2005 and 5,610 in 2004. While some private schools have started providing counselors to address the problem, government-run schools have been slow to follow suit. Cherian Verghese, a specialist with the Indian branch of the World Health Organization, said: "The mental health system needs an overhaul. Our schools might be giving good education but we need education in life skills. From counseling to increasing the number of mental health workers, the strategy should be holistic. Student s are a vulnerable group. Age, competition and relations in the family are all contributing to the growing cases of suicide among school goers”. "There is...
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The Mercury Mavens
2008-05-04 14:00:00
George Washington had the finest medical care available. Unfortunately, given the primitive medicine of the era, that wasn't nearly enough to save him. While it is probably unlikely that he would have survived his final illness, the aggressive treatment that the great statesman received certainly didn't help. His doctors blistered his skin (to draw off "humours"), gave him frequent bleedings (Martha Washington had objected to the bleedings but her husband overrode her), and applied poultices of wheat bran. They also purged him with mercurous chloride to empty his bowels. After growing weaker and finally asking his doctors to leave him alone, George Washington died on December 14, 1799 at the age of 67. The exact nature of his final illness remains unclear but modern historians believe it may have been diphtheria or strep throat. The medical care that he received almost certainly played a role as well (not that he would be the last U.S. president to be killed by well-inte...
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Is There a Link Between Brain Injury and Psychiatric Problems?
2008-05-01 14:00:00
An interesting analysis in the December 2007 issue of Brain Injury looks at the role of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in the development of severe, long-term psychiatric disorders. While a clear causal link remains unclear, the authors found that psychiatric syndromes are consistently present at an elevated rate following TBI. Survivors of TBI are particularly susceptible to major depression, generalized anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. While evidence of a direct link is lacking, the authors suggest that there may be consistent critical periods for the post-injury development of psychiatric disorders that have yet to be identified. There is evidence, however, that TBI cases remain at risk for years following injury. Non-organic factors, including pre-morbid personality traits and post-injury psychological reactions to disability and trauma, seem to play a role in the development of post-TBI psychiatric disorders. Treatment professionals dealing with TBI case...
More About: Link , Problems

Mother Convicted In Munchausen Syndrome Case
2008-04-29 14:00:00
A Harris County jury has convicted a Texas woman accused of subjecting her young son to at least two unnecessary surgeries. Laurie Williamson, 44, was convicted Thursday of injury to a child in connection with the surgeries for implantation of a nerve-stimulation device and insertion of a gastric feeding button. She now faces the possibility of a life sentence. The punishment phase of the trial started Thursday and will resume next Tuesday. State child welfare officials and prosecutors said Williamson has Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a rare disorder in which a person fabricates or induces symptoms in others to gain attention. Prosecutor Mike Trent said Williamson manipulated doctors and her son's condition to get the surgeries. They added that over ten years, Williamson took her three children to at least 500 medical appointments. Child Protective Services took custody of the children in March 2006. Defense attorney Allen Isbell denied that his client has the syndrome. He sa...
More About: Syndrome , Mother , Case

The Beast Within
2008-04-27 14:00:00
It was in the autumn of 1572, following a rash of animal attacks in the woods near Dole, France, that the local peasants were authorized to seek out the werewolf assumed to be responsible. There were few actual sightings of the animal but the "loup garou" had carried off several small children and attacked horsemen who had driven it away " only with great difficulty and danger to their persons". The peasants were instructed "to assemble with pikes, halberts, arquebuses, and sticks, to chase and to pursue the said were-wolf in every place where they may find or seize him; to tie and to kill, without incurring any pains or penalties". Despite their search, it was only on November 8 of that year that peasants came upon a "monstrous creature" attacking a young girl. The creature was driven off although the girl later died of her injuries. Even in the darkness, some of the peasants thought they recognized the creature as a local hermit named Gilles Garnier. Garnier was not popular i...
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