Survey: Growing demand for digital psychotherapies to help veterans deal with substance abuse, depression, problem solving and insomnia

Vet­er­ans go for dig­i­tal psy­chother­a­py (Health­care IT News): “Com­put­er­ized psy­chother­a­pies, or CPTs, hold great inter­est for vet­er­ans receiv­ing out­pa­tient treat­ment, accord­ing to a study pub­lished in Telemed­i­cine and e‑Health. The study, rely­ing on infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by 151 vet­er­ans receiv­ing treat­ment in a Vet­er­ans Health Admin­is­tra­tion sub­stance use dis­or­der out­pa­tient clin­ic, showed vet­er­ans were 

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Study: Brain waves help predict stress-related sleep problems

. Brain waves pre­dict risk of insom­nia (UPI): “Dur­ing sleep, the brain pro­duces a series of elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves. The major­i­ty of these waves are gen­er­at­ed deep in the brain from por­tions called thal­a­mus and cor­tex. Research sug­gests the cen­tral pur­pose of these waves is to drown out poten­tial­ly disruptive 

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Three Ways to Bring Mindfulness Into Therapy

— Many ther­a­pists have come to regard cul­ti­vat­ing moment-to-moment aware­ness as a cura­tive mech­a­nism that tran­scends diag­no­sis, address­es under­ly­ing caus­es of suf­fer­ing, and serves as an active ingre­di­ent in most effec­tive psy­chother­a­pies. The clin­i­cal val­ue of 

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Study: Long-term use of anxiety and sleeping pills can increase Alzheimer’s risk

Anx­i­ety and sleep­ing pills ‘linked to demen­tia’ (BBC): “A study of old­er Cana­di­an adults found that past ben­zo­di­azepine use for three months or more was linked to an increased risk (up to 51%) of dementia…Benzodiazepines are used to treat anx­i­ety dis­or­ders and insom­nia. Dr James Pick­ett, head of research at the Alzheimer’s Soci­ety, said 

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Questioning brain health status quo in depression and Alzheimer’s

Two good recent pieces in The New York Times bring to the fore­front the need to ques­tion sta­tus quo mind­set and prac­tices about how to mea­sure and enhance brain health. Sleep Ther­a­py Seen as an Aid for Depres­sion “Cur­ing insom­nia in peo­ple with depres­sion could dou­ble their chance of a full recov­ery, sci­en­tists are reporting.…

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