Mental Illness

(Newser) - An Air Canada flight from Toronto to London had to make an emergency landing Monday in Ireland after the co-pilot suffered a mental breakdown in midair, the Telegraph reports. The pilot started screaming God's name while at the controls of the Boeing 767; crew members removed him from the cockpit, bound his wrists and ankles, and handcuffed him to a seat in front of shocked passengers. More »

(Newser) - The media loves to publish experts' diagnoses of Britney Spears, but assessing a patient's mental condition from gossip columns is irresponsible—and it's giving therapists a bad rep, concluded some professionals at an American Psychoanalytic Association summit. "Brains don't have a checkbox," one analyst told the AP, but some media outlets say such opinions are essential to coverage. More »

(Newser) - Iraq war veterans are suffering from stress, turning to alcohol, and falling into poverty—a fate that prompts some to ask whether the US has learned from tragedies of veterans past. Washington has identified 1,500 Iraq vets as homeless and helped about a third, but echoes of Vietnam persist among activists. "I'm like, wait, wait, hold it, we did this before," one said. "I don't know how our society can allow this to happen again." More »

(Newser) - Soldiers who are unfit because of injuries or illness are being sent to Iraq to meet deployment goals. Physicians reveal that 52 soldiers from Colorado's Fort Carson were deployed despite suffering from nerve damage, mental health problems and other ailments, the Denver Post reports. "Because of issues reaching deployable strength we have been taking borderline soldiers who would otherwise have been left behind for treatment," said an email by a camp doctor. More »

(Newser) - Depressed and constantly reprimanded by his superiors, Pfc. Jason Scheuerman shot himself in his Iraq barracks in 2005—raising serious questions about how the military handles mental illness, the AP reports. Scheuerman's was one of a record 152 Army suicides in Afghanistan and Iraq, but his parents had to fight a reluctant military to piece together what led to their son’s death. More »

(Newser) - Parents whose kids have psychiatric disorders will often seek, and find, signs of the same illness in themselves, the New York Times reports. Some ailments do run in the family—depression and bipolar disorder, for example—but parents at times dig up symptoms to show solidarity with kids and lessen their sense of guilt. Some families even build a deeper bond over a shared mental disorder. More »

(Newser) - The Omaha youth who went on a shooting rampage in a busy mall spent much of his later teen years in institutions and foster care because of behavioral and psychiatric problems, CNN reports. Robert Hawkins' trouble began five years ago, when he was sent to a treatment center after threatening to kill his stepmother, a state official said. More »

(Newser) - First Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside faces possible life in prison. Her crime? Attempting suicide in Iraq. At a military hearing this week, her diagnosed mental illness was spurned by superiors as an "excuse” and labeled “psychobabble." Suicide tries remain illegal in a military culture that scorns mental disorder, the Washington Post reports, but Whiteside says she "can fight them, because I'm alive." More »

(Newser) - Spurred by April shootings at Virginia Tech, new reporting of mental health data has doubled the number of Americans banned from purchasing guns on such grounds, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said today. Nearly 220,000 names have been added to the FBI list, highlighting the data-sharing gap that allowed shooter Seung Hui Cho to buy guns though a court deemed him mentally defective. More »

(Newser) - Nearly 6% of the population suffers from compulsive buying, which is often linked to other problems with control and mood disorders, according to research in the American Journal of Psychiatry . About the same percentage of women and men are shopaholics, and addicts are likely to be young, near the limit on their credit cards, and making less than $50,000 a year. More »

(Newser) - Higher levels of education help delay the onset of Alzheimer's, but once the disease takes hold, mental decline is faster among those with more schooling, researchers have found. Each year of  education is linked to a 2.5 month delay in accelerated memory loss, according to the study in Neurology . But once it begins, mental deterioration progresses 4% faster for each year of education. More »

(Newser) - The Department of Veterans Affairs reported treating 20,000 new cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in a 12-month period ending in June, up an astounding 70% from the same time the previous year, reports USA Today . The VA counts a total of nearly 50,000 PTSD cases, and expects the number to grow. More »

(Newser) - Three decades into a bizarre nature-versus-nurture experiment, Elyse Schein abruptly discovered she and a twin sister had been separated at birth and adopted into separate homes—all in the name of science. They eventually found each other in 2004, and now talked with CBS about their new memoir, Identical Strangers.   More »

(Newser) - Fears that legalizing physician-assisted suicide would lead to its use on unwilling, disabled people are unfounded, concludes a new study conducted in Oregon and the Netherlands, where the practice is legal. Researchers scoured hundreds of cases for any kind of bias, finding, “no evidence to justify the grave and important concern often expressed about the potential for abuse.” More »

(Newser) - Depression is more debilitating than diabetes, asthma, arthritis, or angina—and people suffering from chronic illness and depression are in worse health than those diagnosed with any other combination of diseases, the BBC reports. "These results indicate the urgency of addressing depression as a public health priority," says the author of a new study. More »

(Newser) - Fairfax County school officials knew that the outcast student who shot dead 32 people at Virginia Tech had selective mutism, a serious social anxiety disorder that prevented him from speaking in many situations. But federal privacy laws blocked disclosure of that information to Virginia Tech, reports the Washington Post .  More »

(Newser) - A redeye flight from Denver to New York took a frightening turn yesterday when a passenger leaped from his seat and tried to open the rear door of a Frontier Airlines jet. Flight attendants and passengers then restrained the man by strapping him to his seat with duct tape. A source tells the Post the 35-year-old is mentally ill. More »

(Newser) - Soldiers who serve extended tours in combat zones have much higher rates of alcoholism, post traumatic stress syndrome and problems at home, a large British study has found. Of those in war zones for more than 13 months over three years, one in four had "severe" alcohol problems, compared to one in 10 who served shorter deployments. More »

(Newser) - A gene that increases the likelihood of left-handedness also boosts the risk of mental illnesses like schizophrenia, the BBC reports. Lefties’ brains often differ from righties’ in the location of controls for speech and emotions, scientists say, and the newly pinpointed gene appears to catalyze the switch. More »