OT: Screening for anxiety & depression

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/health/anxiety-screening-…

**Health Panel Recommends Anxiety Screening for All Adults Under 65**

**The guidance comes as Americans are coping with illness, isolation and loss from the pandemic, as well as other stressors like inflation and rising crime.**

**By Emily Baumgaertner, The New York Times, Sept. 20, 2022**

**A panel of medical experts, called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, on Tuesday recommended for the first time that doctors screen all adult patients under 65 for anxiety, guidance that highlights the extraordinary stress levels that have plagued the United States since the start of the pandemic....**

**From August 2020 to February 2021, the percentage of adults with recent symptoms of an anxiety or a depressive disorder increased to 41.5 percent from 36.4 percent, according to one study cited by the task force. ...**

**The task force panel did not extend its screening recommendations to patients 65 and older. It said there was no clear evidence regarding the effectiveness of screening tools in older adults because anxiety symptoms are similar to normal signs of aging, such as fatigue and generalized pain. ...** [end quote]

Can the incidence of anxiety and depression that are bad enough to be diagnosed as a psychiatric disorder really 4 out of 10 people? That’s pretty shocking.

Not to mention that the task force thinks that being over 65 $uck$ so bad that there’s no point screening for anxiety and depression – maybe they think that all older adults are just normally miserable?

Studies have shown that older people are (on average) happier than middle-aged people.
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/better-re…

Anyway, I don’t think that family practice doctors will be able to screen patients for anxiety and depression very effectively in a 15-minute visit along with everything else they have to do. Unless the patient is self-aware enough to diagnose and present their own mental problems right off the bat.

Wendy

2 Likes

The task force panel did not extend its screening recommendations to patients 65 and older.

Anyway, I don’t think that family practice doctors will be able to screen patients for anxiety and depression very effectively in a 15-minute visit along with everything else they have to do.

Depends upon what the screening entails. In your standard Medicare physical you are asked, both on paper and in person, about anxiety and depression.

DB2

Depends upon what the screening entails. In your standard Medicare physical you are asked, both on paper and in person, about anxiety and depression.

I was going to say the same thing. Most of my face time with the doc is an interrogation about my state of mind. Then he takes my vitals, writes a chit for bloodwork, and that’s it. The Medicare checkup is nowhere near as through as the checkups I got when I was working, and Blue Cross was paying. The Medicare checkups are about what I got when I was paying for my own bare bones insurance through Untied Health, before I turned 65.

A couple thoughts cross my mind, #43 was pushing for a plan to screen everyone, starting with teachers and their students, for correct thought. He was trying to replicate a plan that had been executed in Texas when he was Gov. The Texas project was criticized, as the only thing it did was increase drug company profits for selling mind altering drugs.

The Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP)[1] is a decision-tree medical algorithm, the design of which was based on the expert opinions of mental health specialists. It has provided and rolled out a set of psychiatric management guidelines for doctors treating certain mental disorders within Texas’ publicly funded mental health care system, along with manuals relating to each of them. The algorithms commence after diagnosis and cover pharmacological treatment (hence “Medication Algorithm”).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Medication_Algorithm_Pro…

New Freedom Commission on Mental Health

A coalition of opponents questioned the motives of the commission, based on the results from a similar 1995 Texas mandate while (some guy) was Governor. During the Texas Medication Algorithm Project mandate, psychotropic medication was wrongfully prescribed to the general public. Specifically, TMAP and drug manufacturers marketed ‘atypical antipsychotic drugs’, such as Seroquel, Zyprexa, and others,[3] for a wide variety of non-psychotic behavior issues. These drugs were later found to cause increased rates of sudden death in patients.

In addition to atypical antipsychotic drugs, earlier versions of psychotropic medications, including Prozac, were found to sharply increase rates of suicide, especially during the first month of drug use.[4] Also during TMAP, psychotropic medication was wrongfully prescribed to people not suffering from mental illness, including troublesome children and difficult elderly people in nursing homes.[5] In 2009, Eli Lilly was found guilty of wrongfully marketing Zyprexa for non-psychotic people.[6]

Opponents also assert the New Freedom initiative campaign is a thinly veiled proxy for the pharmaceutical industry to foster psychotropic medication on mentally healthy individuals in its pursuit of profits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Freedom_Commission_on_Ment…

(some guy) launches controversial mental health plan

The plan states that schools are in a “key position” to screen the “52 million students and six million adults who work at the schools” and includes recommendations for screening preschool children (19 June, p 1458).

(that guy)'s announcement comes after new reports showing that increasing numbers of toddlers and children are being prescribed amphetamines, anti-depressants, and antipsychotic drugs. Concern that widespread screening will only increase the number of young people taking drugs has triggered criticism of the plan.

http://www.narpa.org/reference/bush-plans-to-screen-us-popul…

Steve,bring on the Thought Police

I am currently mentoring a math genius from a poor campesino family here in Mexico. Mostly I simply help him cope with how utterly abnormal he is mentally by helping him discover how utterly normal he is outside of his genius ability. He was lucky that his 2nd grade teacher noticed his amazing computational abilities and got him correctly “tagged” so that he got what little support and flexibility was available at the school. By the time he was 13 he had powerful support from within his own community, including from a local rich old guy who paid for him to enter high school (supposedly free but families have to buy books, uniforms, provide transportation from the deep campo to downtown, etc.). He spent this summer after his Freshman year of college working for Facebook in Menlo Park on AI algorithms.

I was an appropriate mentor because when I was 9 we moved and I started Spring term at a new Elementary School in 4th grade where no one knew me. After a few weeks my teacher put me in the slow reader group of her class, and told the principal that I was a delusional maniac child in need of psycho help. I often disappeared from her class (actually in the cloak room or under a coat under my desk), made up crazy stuff about things I could not possibly know (Polynesian taboo laws, trigonometry, planetary magnetic fields…), and that she was appalled that I had not been spotted and “helped” earlier.

Mom came to school and met with principal and explained that my disappearances were no doubt because I wanted to read without interruptions… It went something like this.

“Reading what?” asked the principal.
“Well, the encyclopedia. I think he is now in ‘C’, or maybe ‘D’”.
“Does he read normal books?”
“Yes, he loves Kipling, Twain, and Stevenson, but the encyclopedia rules now. I think he was also reading Mitchener’s Hawaii but bogged down bored with the Puritan missionaries.”

The principal had me psycho’d and IQ’d, and my life changed radically. I was allowed enough liberties that I stopped being disruptive (unintentional as that was), and my teachers helped each other and me to understand how to deal with me. I accepted that I was odd and needed to be much more considerate of others if I was to be treated with consideration. My biggest goals that year, other than learning to Wedeln (which took five more years), was to read through volume “Z” of our World Book encyclopedia, get my older brother to explain electro-magnetism to me (Calculus was still out of reach), and to make a “perfect” tart limey key lime pie.

I am extremely in favor of mental psychological health being integrated into USAian normal life. I am also very very wary of it. I was extremely lucky in both my Mom and that particular school principal. No one has ever messed with my head or hormones, I do enough of that all on my own!

It is interesting that this board has so many of us peculiar people. I hope we all together survive the “move” to our new school, uhm, Board!

david fb

10 Likes

Back in 1984 or 85 stress got so bad I could taste it, it’s like putting a metal coin in your mouth. I wound up in the clinic with a heart condition, thankfully no infarction.

Years later my doctor and I were reminiscing about it. I said, “I spent nine days in the clinic.” He replied, “No, ten days.” How did one day get lost? One day the pain got so bad I said to the doctor, “Either give me a real pain killer or let me die!” The common pain killer (codeine?) was not working so I got a double dose of morphine and a day of my life just disappeared. :wink:

Today I got a flue shot and the third Covid booster. So far just a slight soreness in the upper arm. The first shots were given at a gym that could hold a lot of people. The second booster was at a fire station, much less efficient. This third one was at the Serviço Nacional de Saúde (NHS in US) and they scheduled fewer people with just one nurse doing the job. The wait time after the shot was reduced from half an hour to 10 or 15 minutes. Very smooth operation.

The Captain

4 Likes