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Dennis OConnor

Study: Brain Exercises Provide Breakthrough Treatment for Geriatric Depression - BrainH... - 0 views

www.brainhq.com/...tment-for-geriatric-depression

research brainhq

shared by Dennis OConnor on 01 Jul 20 - No Cached
  • Dennis OConnor on 01 Jul 20
     
    "SAN FRANCISCO - For the first time in a randomized controlled trial, brain exercises were shown effective in addressing depression in treatment-resistant older patients, who had previously used anti-depressive drug therapy without success. The exercises were shown to improve not only mood, but also the often-unaddressed cognitive deficits associated with geriatric depression. The study used neuroplasticity-based exercises from BrainHQ, the brain training app from Posit Science, plus two new exercises designed for the study."
  • Dennis OConnor on 01 Jul 20
     
    While the term 'geriatric depression' tastes like ashes, I was pleased to see this research. I've been working with BrainHQ for some time and I can feel the neuroplastic growth.
Dennis OConnor

Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here's How. - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...-society-analysis-covid-135579

future disruption covid

shared by Dennis OConnor on 28 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • Instead of asking, “Is there a reason to do this online?” we’ll be asking, “Is there any good reason to do this in person?”
  • saluting our doctors and nurses, genuflecting and saying, “Thank you for your service,”
  • give them guaranteed health benefits and corporate discounts
  • ...131 more annotations...
  • it will force us to reconsider who we are and what we value, and, in the long run, it could help us rediscover the better version of ourselves.
  • has the potential to break America out of the 50-plus year pattern of escalating political and cultural polarization
  • the “common enemy” scenario, in which people begin to look past their differences when faced with a shared external threat
  • second reason is the “political shock wave” scenario
  • enduring relational patterns often become more susceptible to change after some type of major shock destabilizes them
  • now is the time to begin to promote more constructive patterns in our cultural and political discourse. The time for change is clearly ripening.
  • The COVID-19 crisis
  • has already forced people back to accepting that expertise matters.
  • move them back toward the idea that government is a matter for serious people.
  • the end of our romance with market society and hyper-individualism.
  • We could turn toward authoritarianism
  • reorient our politics and make substantial new investments in public goods—for health, especially—and public services.
  • to allowing partial homeschooling or online learning for K-12 kids has been swept away by necessity.
  • the social order it helps support—will collapse if the government doesn’t guarantee income for the millions of workers who will lose their jobs in a major recession or depression
  • de-militarization of American patriotism and love of community will be one of the benefits to come out of this whole awful mess.
  • But how do an Easter people observe their holiest day if they cannot rejoice together on Easter morning?
  • How do Jews celebrate their deliverance from bondage when Passover Seders must take place on Zoom
  • Can Muslim families celebrate Ramadan if they cannot visit local mosques for Tarawih prayers
  • All faiths have dealt with the challenge of keeping faith alive under the adverse conditions of war or diaspora or persecution—but never all faiths at the same time.
  • Contemplative practices may gain popularity
  • One group of Americans has lived through a transformational epidemic in recent memory: gay men. Of course, HIV/AIDS
  • Plagues drive change.
  • awakened us to the need for the protection of marriage
  • People are finding new ways to connect and support each other in adversity
  • demand major changes in the health-care system
  • COVID-19 will sweep away many of the artificial barriers to moving more of our lives online
  • uptake on genuinely useful online tools has been slowed by powerful legacy players,
  • collaboration with overcautious bureaucrats
  • Medicare allowing billing for telemedicine was a long-overdue change
  • s was revisiting HIPAA to permit more medical providers to use the same tools the rest of us use every day to communicate, such as Skype, Facetime and email.
  • The resistance
  • we will be better able to see how our fates are linked.
  • near-impossible to put that genie back in the bottle in the fall
  • college
  • forcing massive changes in a sector that has been ripe for innovation for a long time.
  • Once companies sort out their remote work dance steps, it will be harder—and more expensive—to deny employees those options.
  • Yo-Yo Ma
  • Perhaps we can use our time with our devices to rethink the kinds of community we can create through them
  • This is a different life on the screen from disappearing into a video game or polishing one’s avatar.
  • breaking open a medium with human generosity and empathy
  • Not only alone together, but together alone.
  • The rise of telemedicine
  • Out of necessity, remote office visits could skyrocket in popularity as traditional-care settings are overwhelmed by the pandemic
  • they’ve been forced to make impossible choices among their families, their health and financial ruin.
  • This crisis should unleash widespread political support for Universal Family Care
  • single public federal fund that we all contribute to, that we all benefit from, that helps us take care of our families while we work, from child care and elder care to support for people with disabilities and paid family leave.
  • potlight on unmet needs of the growing older population
  • The reality of fragile supply chains for active pharmaceutical ingredients coupled with public outrage over patent abuses that limit the availability of new treatments has led to an emerging, bipartisan consensus that the public sector must take far more active and direct responsibility for the development and manufacture of medicines.
  • resilient government approach will replace our failed, 40-year experiment with market-based incentives
  • Science reigns again.
  • Truth and its most popular emissary, science, have been declining in credibility for more than a generation
  • Quickly, however, Americans are being reacquainted with scientific concepts like germ theory and exponential growth
  • Unlike with tobacco use or climate change, science doubters will be able to see the impacts of the coronavirus immediately
  • for the next 35 years, I think we can expect that public respect for expertise in public health and epidemics to be at least partially restored
  • Congress can finally go virtual.
  • We need Congress to continue working through this crisis, but given advice to limit gatherings to 10 people or fewer, meeting on the floor of the House of Representatives is not an especially wise option right now
  • nstead, this is a great time for congresspeople to return to their districts and start the process of virtual legislating—permanently
  • Lawmakers will be closer to the voters they represent
  • sensitive to local perspectives and issues
  • A virtual Congress is harder to lobby
  • Party conformity also might loosen with representatives remembering local loyalties over party ties.
  • Big government makes a comeback.
  • Not only will America need a massive dose of big government
  • we will need big, and wise, government more than ever in its aftermath.
  • The widely accepted idea that government is inherently bad won’t persist after coronavirus.
  • functioning government is crucial for a healthy society
  • most people are desperately hoping
  • a rebirth of the patriotic honor of working for the government.
  • the coronavirus crisis might sow the seeds of a new civic federalism, in which states and localities become centers of justice, solidarity and far-sighted democratic problem-solving.
  • we will see that some communities handled the crisis much better than others.
  • success came in states where government, civic and private-sector leaders joined their strengths together in a spirit of self-sacrifice for the common good.
  • The coronavirus is this century’s most urgent challenge to humanity.
  • a new sense of solidarity, citizens of states
  • The rules we’ve lived by won’t all apply
  • pandemic has revealed a simple truth:
  • many policies that our elected officials have long told us were impossible and impractical were eminently possible and practical all along.
  • student loans and medical debt
  • evictions were avoidable; the homeless could’ve been housed
  • Trump has already put a freeze on interest for federal student loans
  • Governor Andrew Cuomo has paused all medical and student debt owed to New York State
  • Democrats and Republicans are discussing suspending collection on—or outright canceling—student loans as part of a larger economic stimulus package
  • It’s clear that in a crisis, the rules don’t apply
  • an unprecedented opportunity to not just hit the pause button and temporarily ease the pain, but to permanently change the rules so that untold millions of people aren’t so vulnerable to begin with.
  • Revived trust in institutions.
  • oronavirus pandemic, one hopes, will jolt Americans into a realization that the institutions and values Donald Trump has spent his presidency assailing are essential to the functioning of a democracy—and to its ability to grapple effectively with a national crisis.
  • government institutions
  • need to be staffed with experts (not political loyalists),
  • decisions need to be made through a reasoned policy process and predicated on evidence-based science and historical and geopolitical knowledge
  • we need to return to multilateral diplomacy,
  • to the understanding that co-operation with allies—and adversaries, too—is especially necessary when it comes to dealing with global problems like climate change and viral pandemics.
  • t public trust is crucial to governance
  • 1918 flu pandemic
  • the main lesson from that catastrophe is that “those in authority must retain the public’s trust” and “the way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one.”
  • Expect a political uprising.
  • Occupy Wall Street 2.0, but this time much more massive and angrier.
  • Electronic voting goes mainstream.
  • how to allow for safe voting in the midst of a pandemic, the adoption of more advanced technology
  • To be clear, proven technologies now exist that offer mobile, at-home voting while still generating paper ballots.
  • This system is not an idea; it is a reality that has been used in more than 1,000 elections for nearly a decade by our overseas military and disabled voters.
  • hould be the new normal.
  • Election Day will become Election Month.
  • The change will come through expanded early voting and no-excuse mail-in balloting, effectively turning Election Day into Election Month
  • Once citizens experience the convenience of early voting and/or voting by mail, they won’t want to give it up.
  • . Some states, such as Washington, Oregon and Utah, already let everyone vote at home.
  • Voters already receive registration cards and elections guides by mail. Why not ballots?
  • First, every eligible voter should be mailed a ballot and a self-sealing return envelope with prepaid postage.
  • Elections administrators should receive extra resources to recruit younger poll workers, to ensure their and in-person voters’ health and safety, and to expand capacity to quickly and accurately process what will likely be an unprecedented volume of mail-in votes.
  • In the best-case scenario, the trauma of the pandemic will force society to accept restraints on mass consumer culture as a reasonable price to pay to defend ourselves against future contagions and climate disasters alike.
  • In the years ahead, however, expect to see more support from Democrats, Republicans, academics and diplomats for the notion that government has a much bigger role to play in creating adequate redundancy in supply chains—resilient even to trade shocks from allies. This will be a substantial reorientation from even the very recent past.
  • pressure on corporations to weigh the efficiency and costs/benefits of a globalized supply chain system against the robustness of a domestic-based supply chain.
  • other gap that has grown is between the top fifth and all the rest—and that gap will be exacerbated by this crisis.
  • In this crisis, most will earn steady incomes while having necessities delivered to their front doors.
  • other 80 percent of Americans lack that financial cushion.
  • will struggle
  • A hunger for diversion.
  • After the disastrous 1918-19 Spanish flu and the end of World War I, many Americans sought carefree entertainment, which the introduction of cars and the radio facilitated.
  • The economy quickly rebounded and flourished for about 10 years, until irrational investment tilted the United States and the world into the Great Depression.
  • human beings will respond with the same sense of relief and a search for community, relief from stress and pleasure.
  • Less communal dining—but maybe more cooking
  • many people will learn or relearn how to cook over the next weeks.
  • ikely there will be many fewer sit-down restaurants in Europe and the United States. We will be less communal at least for a while.
  • A revival of parks.
  • Urban parks—in which most major cities have made significant investments over the past decade—are big enough to accommodate both crowds and social distancing.
  • Society might come out of the pandemic valuing these big spaces even more,
  • A change in our understanding of ‘change.’
  • Americans have said goodbye to a society of frivolity and ceaseless activity in a flash
  • Our collective notions of the possible have changed already
  • The tyranny of habit no more.
  • Maybe, as in Camus’ time, it will take the dual specters of autocracy and disease to get us to listen to our common sense, our imaginations, our eccentricities—and not our programming.
  • and environmentally and physiologically devastating behaviors (including our favorites: driving cars, eating meat, burning electricity)
  • echarged commitment to a closer-to-the-bone worldview that recognizes we have a short time on earth
Dennis OConnor

At the Cusp of Solving Cognitive Aging? - Mike Merzenich - Medium - 0 views

medium.com/...g-cognitive-aging-9907a8b7775f

merzenich aging cognition brainHQ

shared by Dennis OConnor on 18 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Bookmark story
  • the ACTIVE Study.
  • hree different theories
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • memory
  • reasoning
  • speed of processing
  • ACTIVE tracked people for 10 years
  • 74 to 84
  • who would have expected faster cognitive processing speed 10 years later
  • The big question was do those gains transfer to real-world activities.And, the answer is: they do.
  • At the end of 10 years
  • about three years more protection against decline
  • speed training
  • ● 38% less risk of onset of depressive symptoms● 30% less risk of deepening of depressive symptoms● 68% stronger feeling of confidence and control● 48% less risk of at-fault car crashes
  • I (Mike Merzenich) have spent decades studying brain plasticity — the brain’s ability to change (at any age), chemically, structurally and functionally.
  • What changes in the brain as it gets older?
  • basic science question
  • every single thing we measured in the aging brain changed (and none for the better).
  • The top row
  • we built a brain-training program designed to make a rat’s brain faster and more accurate.
  • to improve auditory precision and speed.
  • It turns out that this kind of brain training — continuously and progressively challenging the speed and accuracy of brain processing — improves every aspect of brain health we could measure.
  • we could build, test, refine and validate a training program to improve all the major systems of the brain.
  • plasticity-based training
  • cognition (eg, speed, attention, memory, executive function)
  • quality of life (eg, mood, confidence, self-rated health)
  • dementia?
Dennis OConnor

Is Your Story Making You Sick? - 1 views

www.story.movie

storytelling depression

shared by Dennis OConnor on 23 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Dennis OConnor on 23 Jan 20
     
    "shows how people can rewrite the toxic stories they tell themselves. The film reveals how individuals battling addiction, trauma, and depression can change their stories and transcend their pain."
Dennis OConnor

On Teaching: Learning From Black Educators - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...616048

diversity

shared by Dennis OConnor on 23 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • “You need a sincere love for children,” Grenell liked to remind Moore. “Never give up on a child.”
  • firm and demanding, but also warm and encouraging.
  • She was named Mississippi Teacher of the Year in 2001 and won the prestigious Milken Award.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Students will go to great lengths to hide from me what they don’t know.
  • I do that very intentionally at the beginning of the semester to signal: “I see you as a human being. I’m paying attention to what you say to me. You are a unique individual with skills and ideas that matter.”
  • That’s important, because a lot of students have told me that no one’s ever actually read what they wrote. What they mean by that is that their writing has been graded, but it’s never been read.
  • Then, at the end of the semester, I give them the introduction letter back. And the final exam is an essay where they have to reflect on their portfolio: all of the written pieces they produced in the course of the semester.
  • they’re not used to measuring it in terms of actual skills and knowledge. They're always stunned at how far they’ve come.
  • The students have been so used to having their grammar criticized that they over-censor themselves when they’re writing.
  • The message was always, “When you go to college.” It was always, “You can do it.
  • “You get educated for the benefit of the community and the race.”
  • Today we have wasted a generation, telling young people that the primary reason to pursue education is to get into a well-paying career. In rural or economically depressed areas like Delta, looking at education chiefly as a path to social mobility—rather than a path to full citizenship, one’s sense of agency and freedom—can actually depress achievement and increase hopelessness. B
  • By attaching the dreams and aspirations of African American students to a higher good, their expectations are infused with a meaningful purpose.
  • For a lot of the kids now, school is just drudgery from beginning to end—particularly schools that serve poor Black students. There’s no music curriculum, no arts curriculum, no vocational classes.
  • They congratulated me, because I was going to Washington, D.C., to receive the award. These women had taken up money among themselves, put it in a handkerchief, tied it, and handed it to me, as a way to celebrate that I was going to see the president—and represent Black people in a society that questions Black intelligence. I cried. They cried. It was the most touching thing.
  • I am a reflection of the accumulated wisdom these teachers passed on to me. All of these great teachers who had preceded me, who taught in segregated schools under horrible conditions, with no equal pay.
Dennis OConnor

The Quantification of Placebo Effects Within a General Model of Health Care Outcomes - 1 views

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...PMC3162378

placebo research positivity

shared by Dennis OConnor on 04 Jul 20 - No Cached
  • It is proposed that the integration of a scientific model of placebo effects within a general model of health care outcomes could finally end the placebo debate and help to integrate these powerful effects into the health care system.
  • Positive expectancy is recognized as a central component of placebo phenomena by all placebo theorists
  • The proposed model emphasizes that the search for a placebo personality factor must be combined with the measurement of situational expectancy.
  • ...47 more annotations...
  • an individual who has negative expectations regarding treatment effectiveness would likely produce a stronger than average “nocebo” effec
  • placebo-prone personality
  • Absorption
  • receptivity to sensory experiences and a propensity for sustained, focused attention.
  • Absorption has a genetic basis and is higher in women compared to men
  • Absorption can go in either a positive or negative direction, depending on the situation,
  • Subjects were randomly
  • outcome measures
  • based on three scales
  • includes scales measuring fatigue, pain, and spasticity
  • Judgment that the placebo was the active device resulted in a positive score with a magnitude of the confidence rating.
  • if judgment was that the placebo was the placebo device, the confidence rating of the placebo was a negative score, with the magnitude of the rating.
  • scored in the upper quintile on improved quality of life, as measured by the 3 QLI (an average of three symptom scales measuring pain, fatigue, and spasticity) after receiving treatment with a sham device.
  • placebo responders
  • Placebo responders scored higher on Absorptio
  • Placebo responders gave higher confidence ratings that the placebo was the active device
  • This study provides support for a two-factor model of placebo responding.
  • importance of positive expectancy
  • both cognitive and emotional factors mediate these effects
  • Positive beliefs or confidence in the treatment coupled with a desire to feel better activate processes that result in positive outcomes.
  • positive expectancy is an essential factor
  • disease-specific pathways that are activated by positive expectancies have helped to transform this “soft” psychologic factor into a “hard” physiologic factor with physically measurable effects.
  • While the shift from negative to positive affect may be the hallmark of placebo responding, negative affect alone is not sufficient and can play a role in people who worsen as well (nocebo effects).
  • Numerous research studies have reliably shown that Absorption is modestly (yet very consistently) correlated with hypnotizability.
  • Hypnotizability is often associated with “suggestibility,” with perhaps the sense of a weak-willed character or unbridled fantasy-proneness, the “unreality factor” that has plagued placebo theory for decades.
  • enlightening to view these individual differences as a natural endowment in self-regulation skills: a potential innate strength rather than a simple weakness with a natural ability for self-directed healing in response to health challenges.
  • Decades of research have reliably demonstrated that individuals scoring high in Absorption can skillfully modulate an impressive array of physiologic processes in laboratory settings.
  • The literature suggests that the mind–body control of high Absorption scorers is similar to the self-regulation skills that many are seeking to develop with meditation, mindfulness, yoga, and qigong.
  • The regular practice of mind–body control and the cultivation of positive attitudes may enhance regulation at higher levels, improving the regularity of circadian and other rhythms,
  • points to the role of both expectation and conditioning, with conditioning playing a greater role in certain pathways such as immune modulation.
  • somatic vulnerability of high Absorption individuals who suffer from negative biases in perception.
  • nocebo phenomena described by these researchers are important for our model as they directly illustrate the power of a negative interaction of the two factors.
  • Many physicians admit to prescribing placebos to contribute to patient wellness, even though this “dark secret” is not condoned and is considered to be ethically questionable.
  • High Absorption individuals may benefit from encouragement to utilize their innate self-regulation skills toward maximum therapeutic effect.
  • ersons with average Absorption scores can be encouraged to become more skilled at self-regulation through mind–body therapies
  • The model does not specifically address the many factors that contribute to confidence in the treatment, such as cost, pill color, pill size, or confidence-enhancing paraphernalia.
  • The role of provider and patient interaction are also not specifically addressed.
  • he model also does not directly address the role of stress reduction
  • The strength of placebo responding in domains such as pain and depression clearly indicate the importance of the shift from a negative to a positive state.
  • the unresolved issue of why some people respond to placebos whereas others do not
  • asic two-factor model can be further tested with the basic measurement tools of expectancy and Absorption,
  • Conclusions
  • the recognition that positive expectancy and expert self-regulation skills significantly contribute to health outcomes can help to integrate these powerful effects into the health care system
  • The “positive psychology” movement is shifting attention to the power of positive expectation
  • undermining nature of negative expectancy and pessimistic language, especially in vulnerable populations such as those with pain and depression
  • Practitioners of the art of health care have always recognized the importance of motivated and empowered patients and the power of a kind word and a ray of hope.
  • This is the time to quantify these factors, integrating art and science, and finally solving (and forgiving Descartes for) the mind–body problem.
  • Dennis OConnor on 04 Jul 20
     
    "The topic of placebo effects is distinguished by decades of keen scientific interest1-4 coupled with a general skepticism regarding the ultimate significance of these phenomena. The importance of psychologic factors in mediating these effects may contribute to the attitude that placebo effects are not as substantial as a therapeutic effect produced by a drug. Complementary and alternative therapies have sometimes been dismissed as "mere placebos." However, recent studies have provided compelling evidence that placebo effects are physiologically measurable with condition-specific pathways.5"
  • Dennis OConnor on 04 Jul 20
     
    Dr. Jake Fleming recently suggested these potent keywords: quantifiable placebo The keywords led to this article. I find it affirming and empowering.
Dennis OConnor

Diane Meier | Biography | Mount Sinai - New York - 1 views

www.mountsinai.org/...diane-e-meier

palliative compassion

shared by Dennis OConnor on 05 Aug 20 - No Cached
  • Dennis OConnor on 05 Aug 20
     
    Recommended by DeAunne Denmark MD PhD: "Most people who need palliative care are not dying. They are living, and often for a very long time with serious illnesses.... They have a tremendous burden of suffering and caregiver distress, but they are not dying. Palliative care was an answer to that gap. It was recognizing that living with a serious illness nowadays is almost always a chronic disease. No matter how long people have to live, they deserve the same attention to quality of life, treatment of symptoms, management of depression, support for their families, and support for social issues like financing and housing. It should be based on need, not prognosis." -- Diane Meier, MD
Dennis OConnor

Kintsugi - 0 views

kintsugihello.com

AI mental_health

shared by Dennis OConnor on 16 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Dennis OConnor on 16 Oct 20
     
    "Guiding your wellness journey with clinically-backed support and an empathetic community." Experience Kintsugi Kintsugi is tailored for you and your wellness goals, powered by your own voice. As you vent, our comprehensive models use innovative voice biomarker technology to gauge your levels of anxiety and depression on the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 clinical modules. Kintsugi then recommends various exercises tailored to your current state to help you achieve mental well-being. Track your own journal entries and health trends while interacting with a supportive community. You are not alone!
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