Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Monday, September 30, 2013
Teen health program fights obesity, depression
By Anne Harding
NEW YORK | Fri Sep 27, 2013 12:36pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A skills-building program offered as part of high school health classes may help prevent obesity, depression and drinking among teenagers, a new study suggests.
"Our hope is that schools after seeing these outcomes will say, ‘Hey, we want to implement this in our curriculum,'" Bernadette Melnyk, from The Ohio State University in Columbus, told Reuters Health.
"We're talking about 15 hours in a high schooler's education that can have some pretty profound positive (outcomes)."
Melnyk developed the COPE (Creating Opportunities for Personal Empowerment) Healthy Lifestyles TEEN (Thinking, Emotions, Exercise, Nutrition) program, and is the lead author of the new study.
One-third of young people in the U.S. are overweight or obese, she and her team note. Obese teens are at higher risk of depression and are more likely to perform poorly in school.
However, most programs targeting youth obesity don't also address mental health, Melnyk said.
"Unless we change the way that people are thinking, there's less likelihood that any behavioral change is going to sustain," she added.
The COPE program is designed to help teenagers recognize and change irrational and negative thoughts.
"We teach the teens that how they think directly relates to how they feel and how they behave," Melnyk said.
Other components include education on healthy lifestyles, self-esteem building, goal-setting and problem-solving, coping with stress and regulating emotion and behavior. Each of the 15 weekly sessions also includes 20 minutes of walking, dancing or other exercise.
To investigate the effects of the program, the researchers enrolled 14- to 16-year-olds taking health education classes at 11 high schools in the southwestern U.S.
Students at one set of randomly-selected schools participated in the COPE program and others were assigned to a program called Healthy Teens, which focused on topics like road safety and skin care.
In total, 374 teenagers were chosen to take part in COPE and 433 in Healthy Teens.
Immediately after the 15-week program, teens who participated in COPE were taking more steps per day - 13,681 versus 9,619 - based on pedometer readings.
They also had a lower average body mass index, a measure of weight in relation to height, than their peers who participated in Healthy Teens. The effect was small, however - equivalent to about a one-pound difference in weight.
Thirteen percent of the students in COPE reported having had at least one alcoholic drink in the past month, versus 20 percent of those enrolled in Healthy Teens.
Six months later, the proportion of teens that were overweight had fallen in the COPE group - from 44 percent before the program to 41 percent after. The opposite trend was seen among the Healthy Teens group, the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
According to the students, the most helpful aspects of the program were the sections on stress and coping and nutrition and exercise.
Deborah Gonzalez was working as the assistant superintendent at one of the school districts included in the study. She has since joined ASU Preparatory Academies in Tempe, Arizona, as chief academic officer, and has helped the school expand COPE into a year-long program.
"We've been using it now for the past three years as a required course for all freshmen," Gonzalez told Reuters Health.
"The anecdotal feedback that we get from the students is that they are much more aware and conscious of being healthy and making healthy choices."
Gonzalez said teachers have also observed that students have more positive attitudes after taking part in the course.
"It's less about not being negative in their thinking and more about being empowered," she added.
"They truly feel like they can come up with solutions to problems, and they can be the people who positively and proactively decide what's going to happen ... they see themselves as students who are smart and capable and students who can help one another."
SOURCE: bit.ly/18rneSj American Journal of Preventive Medicine, online September 10, 2013.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Panel urges awareness of student-athlete mental health
By Genevra Pittman
NEW YORK | Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:21pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Athletic trainers should be on the lookout for mental health problems among student-athletes, a panel said on Wednesday.
Representatives from the National Athletic Trainers' Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other organizations said athletic trainers are in a unique position to reach out to college athletes and refer them to counseling.
"As an athletic trainer, we're usually right there with the student-athletes during some of their worst moments," Timothy Neal, chair of the task force and assistant director of athletics for sports medicine at Syracuse University in New York, said. "You have their trust."
About 30 percent of college-aged people reported having some type of mental illness during 2010 and 2011, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Neal said he has seen everything from athletes with anxiety and eating disorders to those who are suicidal. Some students come to him for help, but in other cases he reaches out when it seems like something's not quite right.
"What I look for is someone who is acting opposite of as you know them - someone who's more irritable than they normally would be, someone who's more withdrawn than they normally would be," Neal told Reuters Health.
When that's the case, athletic trainers should approach students and offer to refer them for counseling services at the school or in the community. It helps to already have a relationship with those services, Neal said, and to talk with mental health counselors about the particular stressors facing student-athletes.
Athletic trainers should also be prepared to make an emergency referral if student-athletes are a threat to themselves or others, the task force noted. Trainers should follow the protocol of their institution and call law enforcement if the person is violent.
Neal said he talks with student-athletes at the beginning of every season about the importance of psychological health to try to reduce the stigma associated with having a mental health problem.
It can be especially difficult to convince athletes that it's okay to have a mental illness, Dr. Thomas L. Schwenk, dean of the University of Nevada School of Medicine in Reno, who has studied mental illness among athletes, said.
"With special populations, especially populations of people who are particularly goal-oriented, particularly high achievers, particularly focused, there still is a sense of stigmatization, a sense of shame," Schwenk, who was not part of the task force, told Reuters Health.
"We still have to work really hard with special populations like student-athletes to help them understand that they get sick just like everybody else, they have mental health problems just like everybody else."
A particular time to be aware of psychological issues is when athletes get injured and have to take time out from their sport, according to the task force's recommendations, published in the Journal of Athletic Training.
"Many athletes especially at a collegiate level identify themselves as a person as an athlete," Neal said. So when they get hurt, they may start losing that identity and feel isolated.
Schwenk said underlying mental illnesses such as depression also occur among athletes. Symptoms don't have to stem from athletic-related stress, he pointed out.
He said one strategy for reaching out to athletes is to frame mental healthcare as a way to improve their performance in their sport.
"An athlete may not be too enthused," Schwenk said, "until you say, ‘This is the way you can be better.'"
SOURCE: bit.ly/14HXQbE Journal of Athletic Training, online September 25, 2013.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Health records exchange: Many standards, many doubts
Service Desk Comparative ReportGartner's recent magic quadrant for IT Service Support Management included no vendors as leaders or innovators. Learn why and how ITinvolve is delivering an innovative service desk solution that empowers IT staff through social collaboration and visualization to improve incident analysis and triage to speed incident resolution time.Read now »
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Vermont selects CGI to deliver state health benefit exchange
CGI Group Inc. (NYSE: GIB) (TSX: GIB.A), a leading provider of information technology and business process services, today announced that the State of Vermont has contracted CGI to deliver the technology infrastructure for Vermont Health Connect, the state’s health benefit exchange.
CGI’s technology solution for the new health marketplace will enable individuals, families, and small businesses in Vermont to compare and purchase qualified private health insurance plans. Vermonters can determine eligibility for and enroll in public health insurance plans, as well as access federal tax credits, all at the same time.
Robin Lunge, the Director of Health Care Reform, said, “Currently, CGI is working to build the federal exchange as well as the exchanges in Hawaii, Colorado, and Massachusetts. Our partnership with CGI will ensure that we are learning from other states’ experiences. Basically, we will not be recreating the wheel. Instead, we will take advantage of existing resources to reduce costs and reuse them in a way that works for our state.”
Over the next year, CGI will work with Vermont to leverage and build on technology products and structures it already has in place. In partnership with the State, CGI will deliver an exchange that guides Vermonters through the process of finding health coverage. The Vermont Health Connect technology infrastructure will complement the state’s premium billing process and the Customer Support Center, where Vermonters can call for help related to finding healthcare plans.
“I’m pleased that this is yet another indication that we’re on track to offer Vermonters health coverage—whether public or private—in an accessible, straightforward way. Vermont Health Connect will provide Vermonters with the unique opportunity to make apples-to-apples comparisons of their health coverage options,” said Mark Larson, Commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access.
“We are excited to partner with Vermont to build its health insurance marketplace and improve the health benefit selection experience for its citizens,” said Gregg Mossburg, Senior Vice-President, CGI.
For more information on CGI’s work with Vermont, explore this recent coverage from CNBC:
Story – State Exchange Buildout Shifts Into High Gear
Video – Big Deadline, Big BucksAbout CGI
Founded in 1976, CGI Group Inc. is the fifth largest independent information technology and business process services firm in the world. With approximately 71,000 members located in offices and global delivery centers in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, CGI offers a comprehensive portfolio of services including high-end business and IT consulting, systems integration, application development and maintenance, infrastructure management as well as a wide range of proprietary solutions. Further to the recent acquisition of Logica, CGI’s annualized revenue is in excess of C$10 billion, with an estimated order backlog of approximately C$18.3 billion; its shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB) and are included in the FTSE4Good Index. Website: www.cgi.com.
For more information:
Investors
Lorne Gorber
Senior Vice-President, Global Communications and
Investor Relations
lorne.gorber@cgi.com
514-841-3355
Linda Odorisio
Vice-President, Global Communications
linda.odorisio@cgi.com
703-267-8118
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Health Science | Wellframe Wants to Help Fix Your Broken Heart (Wired - Epicenter)
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