Study Sheds Light on Prevalence of 'Long-COVID,' Including Cognitive and Psychiatric Symptoms
This study, done by two researchers in Great Britain, compiled data several months after people had been diagnosed with COVID. A couple particularly interesting facts were that 57% of people experienced one or more long-COVID symptoms in the six months after infection and that 40% of patients had no residual symptoms of long-Covid in the first three months after infection but did have one or more symptoms appear after three months or longer had passed. The most common long-term psychological effects were anxiety/depression and occurred most frequently in older individuals. Click here to read full article.
How Prayer and Science Prepared Palm Beach Atlantic’s New President for the Pandemic
I know not everyone who reads this newsletter is a student or alumnus of Palm Beach Atlantic University, and I only talked with her once (via email) as I retired, but this article coming out in Christianity Today gives a fascinating glimpse into this Christian lady. Especially if you are a student or alumnus of PBA, I encourage you to read this inspiring article. Click here to read full article.
Energy-Saving Lightbulbs Can Interfere with Sleep
There are lots of things that can cause problems sleeping, but here’s some new information I had never heard of. If you or a client are having trouble sleeping yourself, here is another possible cause to consider. Click here to read full article.
New Reports Help Nail Down Myocarditis Risk With COVID-19 Vaccine
Some people fear getting the COVID vaccine because in rare cases it leads to myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, and three European countries have even banned getting the Moderna vaccine to men under 30. These studies looked at this issue and concluded that such COVID vaccine-related myocarditis, besides being rare, 90% of cases were mild and generally resolved on their own, and vaccine-related myocarditis was much less severe than myocarditis caused by contracting COVID by unvaccinated individuals, which sometimes is fatal. Click here to read full article.
Progressive drug laws in cities like San Francisco are killing people
Several progressive cities like San Francisco have suspended enforcement of drug laws and instead implemented policies that allow open abuse of drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine, offer cash payments to users, food stamps and even free rooms at some hotels. However, deaths from drug abuse at such progressive cities have increased five-fold since 2000.
In contrast, in five large European cities’ liberal policies were replaced by enforcement of drug laws, harm reduction methods, prevention and treatment, methods that have been proven to work. Research since 1997 have shown that involuntary treatment of drug offenders produces similar results to treatment of those who voluntarily commit to treatment. The article argues that the approach used by these five large European cities is kinder than the policies being used in several “progressive” cities here in the U.S. Click here to read full article.
The Experts Challenging Treatment of Gender Dysphoria
For many decades, when a child was referred to a counselor because their gender identity didn’t match their body, the standard treatment was counseling to help their identity align with their physical body. Now in some localities both counselors and physicians may risk their professional licensure if they don’t instead do the opposite, i.e., recommend puberty blocking drugs and even do surgeries to help their bodies conform to their gender identity, even though for 80% of such children, their gender identity switches to match their natal gender sometime during adolescence or early adulthood. This short article (the Breakpoint broadcast which has been transcribed) describes some of the professionals (not just Christians) who are questioning this politically correct trend. Click here to read full article.
How to Enlighten & Educate Others about Bipolar
This author has bipolar disorder and makes four suggestions about how to help others accurately understand what bipolar is and how to correct misinformation. I think the principles he enumerates could also be used to help others with other mental disorders educate others about their illnesses. Click here to read full article.
4 Factors to Consider When Choosing a Treatment Facility for Bipolar Disorder
This author gives four helpful suggestions when choosing an in-patient treatment program for a loved one with bipolar disorder. I wouldn’t have thought of some of the points she makes, but once you hear them, they make a lot of sense. Click here to read full article.
What the Future May Hold for the Coronavirus and Us
Will our lives ever return to normal? This author looks at the history of other viruses from 1950 to the present and gives some thoughts about what the future may hold based on those. If you’re interested in this topic (or just plain tired of the present inconveniences), you might enjoy reading this article. Click here to read full article.
If You’ve Had Covid, Do You Need the Vaccine?
Some people have resisted getting the vaccine because they have already had covid, and so think they have natural immunity. As with so many things about this virus, the answer is more complex than that. The amount of natural immunity that results from having covid varies from person to person depending on several factors (elaborated in this article), and so the current recommendation is that people who have had covid should also get vaccinated as well. If you’re wondering about this or have loved ones or clients who wonder about this, this article provides helpful information. Click here to read full article.
The Covid vaccine doesn’t cause infertility, but the disease might
One of the early pieces of misinformation about the covid vaccine is that it could reduce fertility. Now that medical professionals have had longer to research it, this physician says that there is no evidence that vaccination harms either male or female fertility, but that getting covid could do so. Click here to read full article.
Exercise May Help to Ease ‘Chemo Brain’
Almost every woman who has chemotherapy for breast cancer complains of “chemo-brain”—difficulties thinking and remembering, which often lasts up to six months after treatment has ended. This large study (more than 500 women) found that even moderate exercise (e.g., walking 30 minutes per day) eased these symptoms. If a person is too fatigued to get 30 minutes of exercise a day, any amount of exercise is helpful. And we know from other studies that regular exercise reduces the likelihood of recurrences of cancer and increases longevity, so we now have other reasons to motivate us to get regular exercise. This research did not include any men, so we can’t extrapolate whether the same results would hold for them. (I know some women might say that men have “chemo-brain” all the time, even if they’re not on chemotherapy, but that’s a discussion for another time.) Click here to read full article.
“20 Rules to Live By: My ADHD Life Guide”
If you have a loved one with ADHD or counsel clients with ADHD, here is a concise list of 20 suggestions to have a more successful life. Click here to read full article.
Early Psychosis Intervention Shows Robust Real-World Effectiveness
Denmark has often been a world leader in research because of their comprehensive registries. This registry study found that those patients who received comprehensive treatment the first time a psychosis appeared did better on several fronts in the years ahead. Click here to read full article.
High-End Design Comes to the Fish Tank
This article doesn’t have anything to do with counseling, but if you’d like to take a look at how some of the really affluent lives, here’s an article about high-end fish tanks, that can cost up to $750,000.00. If that’s not in your budget, you don’t need to bother to read this article. Click here to read full article.
I became a ‘trans widow’ after my husband became a woman
This article is a summary of this woman’s experience as her husband of many years decided he wanted to become a woman. I include it because I think it enables us to develop empathy for the emotional struggles such individuals go through when their spouses decide to change genders. Click here to read full article.
Student Planners: A Playbook for Life with ADHD
Children and teens with ADHD often resist the idea of using a planner. This article provides suggestions for helping parents overcome that resistance and ideas for helping their children begin using their planner effectively. Click here to read full article.
The Subjective Experience of Childhood Maltreatment in Psychopathology
The individuals experience life-long psychopathology, is it more related to how serious the childhood maltreatment was objectively, or is it more related to the individual’s subjective experience of how serious the maltreatment was? This research study delved into that matter and found some initial answers, but this is an area that clearly needs more exploration. If someone is needing a research topic, this could be one to consider. Click here to read full article.
Some Teens Want to Quit Vaping
About 10% of high school students vape, and now that the health risks are becoming better known, about ½ of those have tried to quit. Although this article was written to pediatricians, if you’d like to know the health risks of vaping, (it increases the likelihood of a teen contracting COVID five times, as well as causing other medical problems) this article will educate you. Click here to read full article.
Babies Euthanized
One of the concerns sometimes raised against euthanasia is the “slippery slope”, i.e., that once euthanasia is approved for terminally ill people it will gradually be applied to other groups. Belgium may be an example of this. Several years ago euthanasia was approved for terminally ill people. The European Institute of Bioethics just released statistics showing that 10% of infant deaths in Belgium were from euthanasia. I don’t have a web address for this but received this information from a reputable source. Click here to read full article.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Henry Virkler
