Mental Health Considerations for Exercise Practitioners Delivering Telehealth Services

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-28
Author(s):  
Oscar Lederman ◽  
Bonnie Furzer ◽  
Kemi Wright ◽  
Grace McKeon ◽  
Simon Rosenbaum ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT In Australia, exercise practitioners (i.e., clinical professionals specializing in exercise assessment and delivery) are increasingly recognized as core mental health team members. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, exercise practitioners, like other mental health professions, have had to adapt methods of clinical service delivery to ensure social distancing and reduce risk of community transmission. As such, telehealth interventions have rapidly replaced most face-to-face services. To date, evidence surrounding the application of telehealth exercise interventions for people living with mental illness is scarce, and currently there is no consensus or recommendations on how exercise practitioners can provide telehealth services for this population. As such, the aim of this article is to draw on existing research and expert opinion to provide practical and service-based guidance for exercise practitioners delivering telehealth services to people with mental illnesses. Specifically, we explore the potential benefits of telehealth exercise interventions, the various challenges and considerations of telehealth exercise among those with mental illness, and some practical solutions to guide exercise practitioners in delivering telehealth services.

Somatechnics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 291-309
Author(s):  
Francis Russell

This paper looks to make a contribution to the critical project of psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, by elucidating her account of ‘drug-centred’ psychiatry, and its relation to critical and cultural theory. Moncrieff's ‘drug-centred’ approach to psychiatry challenges the dominant view of mental illness, and psychopharmacology, as necessitating a strictly biological ontology. Against the mainstream view that mental illnesses have biological causes, and that medications like ‘anti-depressants’ target specific biological abnormalities, Moncrieff looks to connect pharmacotherapy for mental illness to human experience, and to issues of social justice and emancipation. However, Moncrieff's project is complicated by her framing of psychopharmacological politics in classical Marxist notions of ideology and false consciousness. Accordingly, she articulates a political project that would open up psychiatry to the subjugated knowledge of mental health sufferers, whilst also characterising those sufferers as beholden to ideology, and as being effectively without knowledge. Accordingly, in order to contribute to Moncrieff's project, and to help introduce her work to a broader humanities readership, this paper elucidates her account of ‘drug-centred psychiatry’, whilst also connecting her critique of biopsychiatry to notions of biologism, biopolitics, and bio-citizenship. This is done in order to re-describe the subject of mental health discourse, so as to better reveal their capacities and agency. As a result, this paper contends that, once reframed, Moncrieff's work helps us to see value in attending to human experience when considering pharmacotherapy for mental illness.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 238212051988935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrés Martin ◽  
Julie Chilton ◽  
Doron Gothelf ◽  
Doron Amsalem

Introduction: Depression and suicidal ideation are common among medical students, a group at higher risk for suicide completion than their age-normed peers. Medical students have health-seeking behaviors that are not commensurate with their mental health needs, a discrepancy likely related to stigma and to limited role-modeling provided by physicians. Methods: We surveyed second-year medical students using the Attitudes to Psychiatry (ATP-30) and Attitudes to Mental Illness (AMI) instruments. In addition, we asked questions about role-modeling and help-seeking attitudes at baseline. We then conducted a randomized trial of an intervention consisting of 2 components: (a) a panel of 2 physicians with personal histories of mental illness speaking about their diagnosis, treatment, and recovery to the students, immediately followed by (b) small-group facilitated discussions. We repeated the ATP-30 and AMI after the active/early group was exposed to the panel, but before the control/late group was similarly exposed. Results: Forty-three medical students participated (53% women). The majority of students (91%) agreed that knowing physicians further along in their careers who struggled with mental health issues, got treatment, and were now doing well would make them more likely to access care if they needed it. Students in the active group (n = 22) had more favorable attitudes on ATP-30 ( P = .01) and AMI ( P = .02) scores, as compared with the control group (n = 21). Conclusion: Medical students can benefit from the availability of, and exposure to physicians with self-disclosed histories of having overcome mental illnesses. Such exposures can favorably improve stigmatized views about psychiatry, or of patients or colleagues affected by psychopathology. This intervention has the potential to enhance medical students’ mental health and their health-seeking behaviors.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Tessa Lynch

<p>Generally, one in five New Zealanders experience mental illness. Majority of lifelong mental illnesses begin before the age of 25, presenting a real problem for youth. In 2018, young people of New Zealand called for more help as they rallied outside parliament. The government responded by allocating more money towards student mental health. Yet, employing more counsellors, which is necessary, is not the only way to contribute to an urgent need for a new approach towards supporting mental health and wellbeing.   This research portfolio responded to this complex situation by developing ‘a guide’ for the design of tertiary spaces supportive of wellbeing. One of the most important goals of this work was to align the research closely with user needs and views, therefore research methods involved including students views in more than one phase of development. The work draws on evidence based design, geography, health and architectural theory and the existing wellbeing knowledge. Engagement with the users, observation, experiments and real life interventions were critical in refining a conceptual framework which kept the users at the centre of the process. The outcome of this research was a resource to guide the design of tertiary space for wellbeing, using five intervention points, which could have a positive effect on the student wellbeing if implemented as a system.  New Zealand must shift the current model of mental health care towards more holistic understandings of health, which better incorporates Māori health and wellbeing. Despite New Zealand’s bicultural values, Māori experience significantly higher rates of mental illness. This prompted to design with the same understandings of hauora (health). As a result, the conceptual framework presented a multi-dimensional, interconnected understanding of wellbeing through an integrated framework exploring physical, cultural, social, learning and spiritual environments.   While it is acknowledged that environments can affect our mental health, this is an under researched field requiring motivation to stimulate discussion and change. This research advocates wellbeing as a central focus in the design of our built environments and explores the opportunity for architecture to facilitate our student and national wellbeing goals.</p>


Author(s):  
Richard L. Rumpf ◽  
Mark E. Gindele

Abstract Program Managers need to look beyond the veil of potential benefits to assess the risks of contractor proposed concurrent engineering efforts. The mere mention of concurrent engineering or its synonym, integrated product team, does not in itself reduce program schedule and cost. Evaluations should center upon the offeror’s past success with these initiatives and the fundamental steps leading to their implementation. In a recent study of several programs involving the manufacture of Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment (ALRE) and support equipment, the effects of integrated product teams were assessed. Several of the programs studied had been competitively awarded to contractors that subsequently defaulted on their contract. The equipment programs were then successfully manufactured by the Prototyping and Manufacturing department at Naval Air Warfare Center, Lakehurst, NJ. Data from the study indicated the success of the manufacture was directly attributable to the use of integrated product teams. Extensive communication between engineering, manufacturing, and testing teams led to the resolution of problems quickly. Face to face meetings were frequent and issues were resolved in minutes without resorting to technical memorandums or other protracted written documents. Collocation of the team members was considered the most critical factor to gaining any benefits from concurrent engineering. Further evidence indicated the more complex a system, the more collocation was critical to its successful completion. Complexity, when measured by the number of parts, critical interfaces, and final testing requirements, was assessed for each program. The more complex programs had employed more frequent and local communication.


2019 ◽  
pp. 549-582
Author(s):  
M. Daniele Fallin ◽  
Calliope Holingue ◽  
Laysha Ostrow ◽  
Philip J. Leaf ◽  
Ronald W. Manderscheid ◽  
...  

The field of public mental health has seen many advances in policy and discovery, yet there is much more to be done. We must move beyond a narrow focus on clinical interventions to now embrace the impact of community and population dynamics in promoting mental health, preventing mental illnesses, and fostering recovery. We must take advantage of emerging technologies, tools and strategies to expand discovery of the causes of mental illness that will inform new prevention and treatment strategies. Emerging tools can also guide the best implementation of individual and systems-level changes. Finally, we must continue to monitor the frequency of illness and related outcomes among individuals and populations to gauge our progress and highlight areas for continued improvement.


2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Bates ◽  
Vivien Kemp ◽  
Mohan Isaac

The physical health of individuals with long-term mental illnesses has long been of concern. In Western Australia, the overall mortality rate from preventable causes of people living with mental illness was reported to be 2.5 times greater than that of the general population. A trial peer support service was initiated to assist people with mental illness to attend to their physical health needs. This paper presents the planning, implementation, and results of this collaborative initiative involving nongovernment agencies, the public mental health service, consumers of mental health services, and the University of Western Australia.


CNS Spectrums ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 638-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel A. Dvoskin ◽  
James L. Knoll ◽  
Mollie Silva

This article traces the history of the way in which mental disorders were viewed and treated, from before the birth of Christ to the present day. Special attention is paid to the process of deinstitutionalization in the United States and the failure to create an adequately robust community mental health system to care for the people who, in a previous era, might have experienced lifelong hospitalization. As a result, far too many people with serious mental illnesses are living in jails and prisons that are ill-suited and unprepared to meet their needs.


Author(s):  
Jenny Paananen ◽  
Camilla Lindholm ◽  
Melisa Stevanovic ◽  
Elina Weiste

Mental illness remains as one of the most stigmatizing conditions in contemporary western societies. This study sheds light on how mental health professionals and rehabilitants perceive stigmatization. The qualitative study is based on stimulated focus group interviews conducted in five Finnish mental health rehabilitation centers that follow the Clubhouse model. The findings were analyzed through inductive content analysis. Both the mental health rehabilitants and the professionals perceived stigmatization as a phenomenon that concerns the majority of rehabilitants. However, whereas the professionals viewed stigma as something that is inflicted upon the mentally ill from the outside, the rehabilitants perceived stigma as something that the mentally ill themselves can influence by advancing their own confidence, shame management, and recovery. Improvements in treatment, along with media coverage, were seen as the factors that reduce stigmatization, but the same conceptualization did not hold for serious mental illnesses. As the average Clubhouse client was thought to be a person with serious mental illness, the rehabilitation context designed to normalize attitudes toward mental health problems was paradoxically perceived to enforce the concept of inevitable stigma. Therefore, it is important for professionals in rehabilitation communities to be reflexively aware of these tensions when supporting the rehabilitants.


Author(s):  
Taylor Riffel ◽  
Shu-Ping Chen

Background: The stigma of mental illness causes delays in seeking help, and often compromises victims’ therapeutic relationships with healthcare providers. The knowledge, attitudes, and behavioural responses of future healthcare professionals toward individuals with mental illnesses are explored here to suggest steps that will reduce mental illness stigma in healthcare providers. Methods: A generic qualitative approach—Qualitative Description—was used. Eighteen students from nine healthcare programs at a Canadian University participated in individual semi-structured interviews. Participants answered questions regarding their knowledge, attitudes, and behavioural responses towards individuals with mental illnesses. Thematic content analysis guided the data analysis. Results: Four main themes were constructed from the data: positive and negative general perceptions toward mental illness; contact experiences with mental illnesses; mental illness in a healthcare setting; and learning about mental illness in healthcare academia. Conclusions: Students showed well-rounded mental health knowledge and mostly positive behaviours toward individuals with mental illnesses. However, some students hold stigmatizing attitudes and do not feel prepared through their academic experiences to work with individuals with mental illnesses. Mental health education can reduce the stigma toward mental illness and improve the care delivered by healthcare professionals.


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