Increasing understanding of the brain and associated advances in technologies to study it will enable improved treatment of neurodegenerative diseases & mental illnesses. But these advances will also increase our insights into normal human behaviour and mental wellbeing, as well as giving the possibility of other enhancement, manipulation, and even degradation of brain function. These developments are likely to provide significant benefits for society, and they will also raise major social and ethical issues due to wide ranging applications. Brain research is likely to have implications for a diverse range of public policy areas such as health, education, law, & security. More broadly progress in neuroscience is going to raise questions about personality, identity, responsibility, & liberty. Brain Waves explores the potential & the limitations of neuroscience insights for policymaking, as well as the benefits and the risks posed by applications of neuroscience and neurotechnologies.
A patient in Broadmoor Hospital who has spent more than two decades alongside some of Britain's most dangerous criminals has won the right to have a review into his detention heard in public, The Independent has learned. The decision, which is thought to be a legal first, has major implications for the way Mental Health Tribunals function and will open the doors to one of the country's most secretive arbitration systems. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has spent 23 years detained under the Mental Health Act, mostly at Broadmoor Hospital, the high-security facility in Berkshire that houses notorious offenders such as the serial killers Peter Sutcliffe and Robert Napper. He was committed in September 1986 after being convicted on two counts of attempted wounding. Doctors had classified the 52-year-old as having a mental illness and psychopathic disorder, but in September 2008 they changed the diagnosis to just a psychopathic disorder.
Expanded psychiatric 'bible' will see more people needlessly medicated, experts warn. Mild eccentrics, oddball romantics and the lonely, shy and sad could find themselves diagnosed with a mental disorder if proposals to add new conditions to the world's most widely used psychiatric bible go ahead, experts have warned.
In the Netherlands, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) are considered acceptable medical practices in specific circumstances. The majority of cases of euthanasia and PAS involve patients suffering from cancer. However, in 1994 the Dutch Supreme Court in the so-called Chabot-case ruled that “the seriousness of the suffering of the patient does not depend on the cause of the suffering”, thereby rejecting a distinction between physical (or somatic) and mental suffering. This opened the way for further debate about the acceptability of PAS in cases of serious and refractory mental illness. An important objection against offering PAS to mentally ill patients is that this might reinforce loss of hope, and demoralization. Based on an analysis of a reported case, this argument is evaluated. It is argued that offering PAS to a patient with a mental illness who suffers unbearably, enduringly and without prospect of relief does not necessarily imply taking away hope and can be eth...
No country has a blanket policy of mandatory psychiatric review but the specialty contributes in circumstances of exclusive mental disorder or when there is doubt regarding capacity and sound judgement. The absence of a mandatory role for psychiatrists means that reversible psychopathology may be missed. As a result, the patient's decision to end his/her life may be more informed by treatable mental disorder than by his/her lifelong preferences.
This is an application by a NHS Trust for declaratory relief in respect of a man (whom I shall call "Dr. A") who is on hunger strike in the Trust hospital. The relief sought by the Trust is in short a declaration : (i) that he lacks capacity to litigate and to make decisions in respect of his nutrition and hydration; and (ii) that it is lawful for the Trust to administer artificial nutrition and hydration.
Judge approves forced Caesarean for mentally-ill woman Doctors have been granted permission to perform an urgent Caesarean section on a mentally-ill woman with diabetes. High Court judge Mr Justice Hayden gave specialists at the Royal Free London NHS Trust approval after a five-hour hearing at the Court of Protection. He said the decision was "draconian" but necessary because the mother's life may be in danger. The woman, 32, who is 32 weeks pregnant, was deemed unable to make the decision over how to give birth. The ruling, late on Friday, came after doctors applied for permission to carry out the delivery in order that the patient's "unstable mental state" could be treated. A specialist from the trust told the Court of Protection in London, which specialises in issues relating to the sick and vulnerable, that their priority was "keeping this woman alive".
This Federal health agency’s mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's communities. SAMHSA administers a combination of programs and data collection activities. The website provides research and data that demonstrate how prevention works, that treatment is effective, and that people can recover from mental and substance use disorders