Therapist Unlimited Blog

Those persons who are computer addicts or those that play computer games more than seven hours a week usually lack sleep during weekdays and experience greater sleepiness than casual or non-gamers.
This was the result to a recent research conducted by the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, AR who also discovered that excessive gamers have significantly poorer sleep hygiene and sleep less on weekdays than other gamers; a significant positive correlation was found between the hours of game play and sleepiness.
Based on the study, the researchers also discovered that gamers who reported that their gaming interfered with sleep slept for 1.6 hours less than other gamers, while those who claimed to be addicted to  gaming slept one hour less on weekdays.
According to lead researcher Amanda Woolems the result of their survey has clearly shown the world that excessive gamers spend less time in bed and have longer sleep latency.

Lack of sleep is common among those persons who are computer addicts.

To get the data, Woolems explained they examined data from 137 students recruited from the university who were enrolled in introductory psychology courses.
Woolems revealed participants’ mean age was 22 years and a majority of the sample was women (86).
She said gamers were classified as casual or excessive (those who spend more than seven hours a week using the internet and playing computer games), based on a demographic questionnaire and sleepiness was assessed subjectively through questionnaires.
The lead researcher said of the total sample, 10.81 percent reported that gaming interfered with their sleep and 12.6 identified themselves as being addicted to gaming.
Woolems hoped that through their study, those who are addicted to computer games will now strive hard to have ample time of sleep ideally eight to nine hours a day for them to be healthy and away from sickness.
She and her group hoped that through the result of their study adult would strive hard to achieve eight hours of sleep per night and that adolescents get nine hours of sleep in a regular basis.

Women around the world should strive hard to achieve ample time of sleep ideally eight hours a day to avoid chances of suffering from heart related medical problems.
According to the research conducted by the University of Warwick and University College London it was discovered that women who get less than the recommended eight hours sleep a night are at higher risk of heart disease and heart-related problems than men with the same sleeping patterns.
The researchers have found out that levels of inflammatory markers vary significantly with sleep duration in women, but not men.
The researchers revealed they found Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a marker related to coronary heart disease, were significantly lower in women who reported sleeping eight hours as compared with seven hours.
Lead author of the study, Associate Professor of Biochemical Medicine at Warwick Medical School Michelle Miller said short-term sleep deprivation studies have shown that inflammatory markers are elevated in sleep-deprived individuals, suggesting that inflammatory mechanisms may play a role in the cardiovascular risk associated with sleep deprivation.
The lead researcher said their study could provide some insight into a potential mechanism for the observation in previous studies, which indicates an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease in individuals who have less than five hours sleep per night, and increased risk of non-cardiovascular death in long sleepers.

Women need to have adequate sleep to avoid suffering from heart related diseases.

She said this is the first large-scale study to describe the associations between measures of inflammation and sleep duration in both men and women.
To get the data, Miller said they carefully evaluated 4,600 white participants from the University College London-based Whitehall II cohort study; 73% were men.
She said participants between the ages of 35 and 55 years were recruited between 1985 and 1988 from 20 London-based civil service departments.
Data for this study is from the phase 3 follow-up (1991-1993). Sleep duration was determined by subjective questionnaires, and general health was assessed during a screening examination.
Furthermore, Miller said the findings add to the growing body of evidence, which suggests that there is a non-linear relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and duration of sleep. She said her team fully support the idea that short sleep is associated with an increase in cardiovascular risk and that the association between sleep duration and cardiovascular risk factors is markedly different in men and women.

 

A recent study has shown that those persons who do not have enough sleep are also of risk of suffering from high blood pressure.
The research was conducted by the University of Chicago who monitored over 500 middle-aged people for five years.
The lead author of the study Dr. Kristen L. Knutson explained the study was part of a larger investigation called Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA), which took blood pressure measurements in 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2006.
According to the researchers, high blood pressure accounts for 7 million deaths worldwide and affects about one third of Americans.
Knutson revealed for this study, the participants were 578 African Americans and whites aged from 33 to 45 years at the start.
She said sleep was also measured using a sensor worn on the wrist that measures movement patterns characteristic of sleep and wakefulness (actigraphy).
The sensor was worn on three consecutive days between 2003 and 2005 and gave measures of sleep duration and sleep maintenance (a measure of sleep quality).

Those persons who lack sleep need to be extra careful since they are at risk of suffering from high blood pressure.

Furthermore, Knutson said the results showed that on average, participants slept for about 6 hours a night and only 1 per cent averaged eight or more hours a night.
Knutson and her team revealed identifying the new lifestyle risk factor for high blood pressure could help develop new ways to prevent or reduce it.
Speculating on what the underlying mechanism might be, they suggested that insufficient sleep affects the way the body responds to stress and this might lead to raised blood pressure.
This story should serve as eye opener to those who lack sleep to be more careful so that they would not end up having high blood pressure.

Children and adolescents in the United States are in dire need of sufficient number of child and adolescent psychiatrists who will cater to their medical condition.
According to the latest data released by the U.S. Surgeon General, it was discovered that there are only an estimate 7418 practicing child and adolescent psychiatrists serving  73,675,6002 children and adolescents in the US.
The information released by the US Surgeon General also bared that 20 percent of children and adolescents have a mental disorder with at least a mild functional impairment in the US.
To address this problem a bill sponsored by Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) dubbed as The Child Health Care Crisis Relief Act had been introduced in the House of Representatives.
The pending bills seeks to support loan repayment, scholarships, clinical training grants, and education grants for children’s mental health professionals including: behavioural paediatricians, child and adolescent psychiatrists, child psychologists, school psychologists, school social workers, school counsellors, psychiatric nurses, and marriage and family therapists.

A crisis for child and adolescent psychiatrists now looms in the United States of America.

Child and adolescent psychiatry is the only medical specialty that comprehensively trains physicians to assess and treat children and adolescents’ mental illnesses.
Only averages of 300 child and adolescent psychiatrists complete training each year.
Overwhelming educational debt, pressure and incentives to pursue a primary care career, a long training period, and reimbursement problems discourage medical students from choosing child and adolescent psychiatry.
 

Based on a new study conducted it was discovered that a number of doctors and other health professional do not have appropriate trainings to deal with patients suffering from addiction.
In the research conducted by the Boston Medical Center, researchers found out that proper knowledge in addiction is lacking during medical training, which sadly results in reduced medical care to those having medical problems on addiction.
Researchers said due to their lack of sufficient education on addiction treatment they offer improper treatment to those persons facing addiction problems.
The study said the lack of proper education on addiction could be blamed on the failure of many schools to set aside sufficient hours to teach medical students on the intricacies of the global problem of addiction.
Based on the study researchers also found out that some doctors refuse to undergo thorough study on addiction since accordingly most medical insurance do not really focus on addiction treatment.
The result of this study should serve as revelation for the government and appropriate agencies to closely monitor professional doctors so that these people would always do their jobs well.
Physicians for their part should make sure they have proper knowledge on how to deal with addiction so that they could offer 100 percent cure to patients suffering from addiction.
Doctors adhere to the Hippocratic Oath of genuine public  service so they should at all times perform their duty  well in treating patients regardless of medical condition.

It is quite alarming to note that some doctors lack proper training on how to deal with addiction problems.