Focused Discussions / Discusiones enfocadas
Addiction and Mindfulness
Focused Discussion Dhruti Patel
This paper discusses the background on ways mindfulness affects addiction and recovery process. The second facet of the discussion will focus on the current applied research project implemented in partnership with two local Circuit Courts to the Drug Court participants. The focused discussion will also discuss methodology, application, impacts, recommendations, and future research on using mindfulness in helping participants with addiction issues.
Promoting Wellness through Patient-Centered Prescribing Practices and Monitoring
Focused Discussion Kristine Joy Sunga Lalic, Sadaf Ahmed, Matilda Stelzer, Saba Rizvi, Rona Margaret Relova
Mental health providers at Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Healthcare System (VAPAHCS) play a vital role in promoting the wellness of Veterans seeking mental health services through prescribing practices and education of healthy lifestyles, increased physical activities, well-balanced nutrition, weight management, and monitoring of blood glucose levels to prevent metabolic syndrome. The concept of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of antipsychotic-induced metabolic syndrome and provider’s proactive engagement with patients to mitigate cardiometabolic disorders. “Risk of Metabolic Syndrome Among Veterans Taking Antipsychotics” is a proposed retrospective pilot study that will utilize sociodemographic and clinical data extracted from medical records of Veterans seeking mental health services at VAPAHCS from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2015. Prevalence will be measured by the presence of three of the five criteria of metabolic syndrome identified by the American Heart Association. Patterns of providers’ prescribing practices, such as timeliness of medication changes given patients’ abnormal lab values and physical measurements, will be analyzed. As preparatory for research, the proponents of this study collected 1,529 charts to review. Implications: Cardiometabolic disorders are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity among patients with mental illnesses. Furthermore, the use of second generation antipsychotics (SGAs) presents a significant clinical dilemma, due to the association of SGAs with obesity, hyperglycemia, and dyslipidemia, which are hallmarks in the diagnosis of metabolic syndrome. Knowledge from this study will be fundamental in the implementation of best practices in prescribing medications and promoting wellness of mental health patients at VAPAHCS.
Mindfulness, Meditation, and Yoga Practices for Musicians
Focused Discussion Amy Pollard
This session explores different aspects of mindfulness, meditation, and yoga and how these practices can improve the performance of musicians. The high pressure demands of practicing and daily performance can create challenges of excessive stress, depression, tension, and anxiety. Using breathing techniques, progressive muscle relaxation, different types of meditation, and yoga practice, student and professional musicians are able to perform more effectively and confidently, and also experience less anticipatory anxiety before performances. This session highlights the connection between mind and body that is essential to music performance and can be enhanced by developing a better connection through meditation and yoga.
Turning Health Promotion into Community Action
Focused Discussion Brian Wegner, Jason Lochmann, Emily Loker, Christina Standerfer
This discussion will focus on ways to move citizens to action on a public health issue. The issue we address specifically is Type 2 Diabetes, although we are interested in generating ideas concerning citizens' participation in public health issues and policy more broadly. We will start the discussion by presenting a matrix of factors relevant to community readiness to engage in action related to public health issues. This matrix was developed from analysis of qualitative and quantitative data gathered from over twenty mainly rural communities across a Southern state in which high rates of Type 2 Diabetes prevail statewide. This matrix includes factors such as the intersection of community literacy with health literacy, the ability to visualize a different collective future, and citizens' perceptions of the salience and importance of the issue being addressed. Specific data from our study will be presented to illustrate the usefulness of the matrix followed by a wider discussion of its potential to inform how to engage citizens more broadly on public health issues. Traditionally, the burden of noncommunicable diseases, such as Type 2 Diabetes, has fallen solely to the individual that is diagnosed. Understanding factors that inhibit both individual and collective action related to these diseases can inform practitioners in regard to best ways to set realistic expectations for health promotion and education.
Wellness Coaching to Promote and Increase Physical Activity among Middle Aged to Older Adults
Focused Discussion Andrea Stewart Roa
This paper discusses how wellness coaching can promote and increase physical activity among middle aged to older adults, addressing some of the challenges faced by this population based on research and survey data collected. The discussion will apply the biopsychosocial model to wellness coaching and explore factors that can influence physical activity as people age. The session will also discuss application, impact and recommendations for using wellness coaching to promote physical activity and to reduce the risk of suffering negative health consequences to age better.
Autoimmunity: An Unacknowledged Public Health Crisis in Need of Prevention
Focused Discussion Bonnie Feldman
Autoimmune diseases affect 50 million individuals in the US (16% of the population), more than cancer and cardiovascular disease combined. What’s more is that 75-80% of autoimmune patients are women, and it is the 8th leading cause of death among women. In fact, there are 7.6 million more with the autoimmune disease than breast cancer. This is an unacknowledged public health crisis where young adults are most at risk for 7 of the more than 80 autoimmune diseases--type 1 diabetes, lupus, Crohn's, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, Graves disease of the thyroid and rheumatoid arthritis. These autoimmune diseases are costing the US healthcare system for more than 100 billion annually. How did this happen? Like cancers 50 years ago, autoimmune diseases are not generally grouped into a common category; instead, these more than 80 diseases are scattered among various body systems and specialists. Despite the increasing prevalence, these diseases remain under-recognized and underserved and are in desperate need of public health interventions. What are we going to do about it? This talk will outline a three-step solution to acknowledge that autoimmunity is a public health crisis. We wil discuss collecting incidence and prevalence data that aggregates the diseases, and creating centers of excellence to bring the collaboration of specialists to one location.
Profile and Demands in Mental Health of Undergraduate Students: The Case of Campinas State University Attended in Initial Assessment at the Psychological and Psychiatric Assistance Service
Focused Discussion Tânia Maron Vichi Freire de Mello, Milena Bortoti, Daniel Montatnini, Camila Truzzi, Amilton Dos Santos Junior, Adriane Pelissoni
It is known that cultural and social issues play an important role in mental disorders. In the case of university students, there is a growing interest and concern for the mental health of these individuals. The state university of Campinas (Unicamp) is a public institution, with approximately 37,494 students (19,869 undergraduate and 17,625 graduate). Unicamp was considered, in 2017 and 2018, the best university in Latin America, according to the Times Higher Education. Unicamp has a specialized mental health service for students, the psychological and psychiatric student support service (SAPPE). In this study, it was chosen to collect data covering the period from 01/01/2016 to 12/31/2017. Objectives: to describe and analyze the demands and profiles of undergraduate students at unicamp attended by SAPPE. Subjects and methodology: collecting data from the initial assessment records contained in the medical charts of undergraduate students, carried out by SAPPE psychologists between 2016 and 2017. The requirements of the research ethics committee of the University of medical records research where retrospectively respected. Data were analyzed using the computer program SAS (statistical analysis system) for Windows version 9.2. Results and conclusions: a higher percentage of women were attended in all of the campuses served by SAPPE and the most represented area was humanities and arts. At the Campinas campus, the main complaints observed were affective-emotional, followed by academic, family and psychosomatic. Data related to violence against oneself were also quite relevant.
Advancing Health Communication through Collaboration
Focused Discussion Uchenna Onuzulike
Health communication is a fast-growing track, major, course, and concentration in communication departments across universities in the United States. Yet not all the communication departments have engaged in one of the above, especially in terms of collaboration with other departments or disciplines. Thus, the aim of my presentation is to stimulate discourse and feedback on how to advance health communication through collaboration. This focused discussion will also highlight the benefits of educating students on the importance of health communication, building collaborative courses, research, and teaching among various departments and disciplines.
Mentoring as a Health Literacy Program to Reduce Maternal Mortality Rate in Indonesia
Focused Discussion Sri Indra Kurnia
Reducing maternal mortality rate is the hardest problem not only in Indonesia but also in most countries in the world (Edna, 2011). Every year, around 20,000 women in Indonesia experience death because of complications in labor (Stalker 2008). There are six most common causes of this problem: bleeding 42%, eclampsia 13%, abortion 12%, infection 10%, prolonged labor 9%, and other causes 15% (Rachman 2007). Lack of knowledge and low literacy on health particularly about the importance of periodic checks is one of the contributing factors bearing this challenge. Other problems related to biological, psychological, social, spiritual, and cultural context may worsen the health status of pregnant women. Therefore, an effort to reduce maternal mortality rate is inevitably needed. Mentoring program is one of the viable solutions to tackle this problem and will help to eradicate health illiteracy as health education is a basic need for pregnant women. This program is designated for Indonesian women with the sense of strong cultural, social, and spiritual concept. The mentoring process will be in collaboration with healthcare providers and local leader to persuade pregnant women and to maximise the involvement. The purpose of this study is to explore the successful opportunity of a mentoring program. The method used is direct observation and study literature; the direct observation is used to get the main problem from the primary data, while study literature is used to determine the problem solving according to theories related to Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), childbirth complications, mentoring concept, and holistic care.
