SUICIDES IN THE US AND MISSISSIPPI: DISTURBING TRENDS
Sudhakar Madakasira, MD, DLFAPA Suicide is a terrible human tragedy and potentially preventable. As suicide rates have steadily increased over the past few decades, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline was established in 2004 to provide 24/7 suicide crisis intervention and support via a toll-free telephonic hotline. The US Surgeon General in 2012 announced a National Strategy for Prevention of Suicides (1). Suicide prevention is becoming recognized as a public health responsibility rather than that of the clinical settings (2). A previous study reported that suicide was the tenth most common cause of death in Mississippi (MS) in 1996 and the…
How Do I Help My Child with Depression?
As a parent, you want nothing but the best for your child, and it can be crushing to watch your child struggle with depression. Depression can impact every aspect of your child's life (and thus your family life), from their mood and behavior to their academic performance and social interactions. It can be difficult to know how to help, and because depression can manifest in different ways, it can also be hard to identify. But you are not alone in this! Many families face mental health challenges and there are many tools and resources available to help you. Depression in…
“Who’s On Your Team?”
“Team Work makes the Dreams Work” a popular saying some of you may have recognized throughout the years. Its reference has been related to people working together to achieve more than they could individually and or independently. One could say that could not be a truer statement in terms of today’s prevalence in childhood mental health disorders. You’re not alone. A team approach — with families, healthcare professionals, mental health providers, educators, and social-emotional support sources all working together — we can change lives and outcomes during these formative years in our children’s lives. In today’s society we have come…
Psychiatric Partial Hospitalization Programs: A Primer
Partial Hospitalization, sometimes referred to as “Day Hospital”, is neither an inpatient service nor a strict outpatient service, rather a mid-ground along the range of treatment intensity between the two traditional types of psychiatric services. Partial hospital programs (PHP) render acute care and intensive therapies as an alternative to inpatient hospitalization. They also provide transitional treatment between an inpatient episode and outpatient treatment in order to shorten inpatient length of stay andenhance potential for renewed productivity of the individual. They also function as a supplement to traditional outpatient treatment. Although required to be a core component of the Community Mental…
Self-Care – When taking care of yourself is the No.1 thing you can do for your child
When the responsibilities in life allow us to forget to take care of our personal needs, it’s time to do a self-care check- up. This is most commonly true for moms, who have many caregiving responsibilities, but none the less we moms certainly don't own the “letting life get in the way of taking care of ourselves” monopoly. Educators too often easily loose themselves in the mission of education, many times feeling the need to do more or work harder for their students, which can easily lead to a burn out, if self-care measures are left out. No matter if…
Returning to “Norm”
Throughout this pandemic, many of us have had to determine what normalcy is. What does “normal” really mean, anyway? Webster Dictionary defines Normalcy: “as the condition of being normal; the state of being usual, typical or expected.” One could agree that this year has been anything but normal. But in the rush to return to “normal” let’s use this time to consider what parts of normal are worth rushing back too. If we stop and think about our wish to return back to our “normal” lives, let us stop and think about what really is our goal now? One major…
Raising Kids in a Digital World
How do you teach your child to live in a digital world you didn’t grow up in? Elementary, middleand high school students are of this digital-driven generation; they have been exposed to it their entire lives and do not remember a time without it. No one cares more about your child’swell-being and safety more than you do. Guiding our kids not just in the real world applications but also in the virtual is just as important. While we know, technology is here to stay, as well asadvance, it is better to arm our kids with the knowledge to navigate this…
Taking the Wheel: Steering our Kids to Better Mental Health
Over the last year, many of us parents/ caregivers have felt we were in a perpetual traffic jam during the Covid-19 pandemic. Meaning, we felt stuck in our circumstances. Traffic jams are extremely inconvenient to not only our tight busy schedules, but they can also trigger anxiety and frustration. While now some of us feel the traffic jam of this past year is beginning to clear up, things are beginning to move again, and we feel we can take back control of the wheel, many of our little passengers have suffered the “ Jam of 2020”. Let us look at…
Partial Hospital Program and Mental Health
When is going to a Partial Hospital Program (PHP) the right choice? Let’s first begin explainingwhat a Partial Hospital Program entails. A Partial Hospital Program (PHP) is a mental health solution defined as “a time-limited, ambulatory, active treatment program that offers therapeutic all intensive, coordinated, and structured clinical services within a stable therapeutic milieu.” It is an alternative to hospitalization and combines the best facets of inpatient care (structure and intense care) with the best of outpatient care (scheduling flexibility and lower cost). This type program allows patients the mobility and freedom to maintain home and social life and daily…
