Finnish Open Dialogue: High recovery rates leave many psychiatric beds empty

This is a guest post written by Daniel Mackler the filmmaker. His three films show alternative methods of healing people with psychosis. In all the films relationships are ultimately what heal. Loving, healing relationships. Please visit these posts to look at the trailers and read a bit about each of his films. Here and here and here. You can purchase the films here.

All the films are now available for free viewing on youtube now as well. If you’ve not seen them yet, it’s well worth taking the time to do so.

The below article was written as a result of a conversation that Daniel and I had. He revealed that the psychiatric hospital he visited when making his last film, built in the 1950s was mostly empty. They don’t need the beds because their success rate is so high!

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President Barack Obama’s ambitious 1-million-person personalized medicine study

President Barack Obama’s ambitious 1-million-person personalized medicine study began to take shape this week with the announcement of four medical centers that will recruit volunteers starting this fall. A fifth center aims to sign up 350,000 participants by blasting the general public with ads coming soon to your web browser or mobile phone.
The White House’s announcement yesterday of $55 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) fires the starting gun for the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort Program. The plan is to recruit 1 million or more people who are willing to share their health and genetic information over many years to help researchers develop individualized treatments. Other countries have similar studies underway, but the U.S. version aims to be larger, more diverse, and more patient-centric—participants will help shape the study and be able to see their data. NIH Director Francis Collins calls it “the largest, most ambitious research project of this sort ever undertaken.”
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What’s up, doc? Tell me over my smartphone, please

This year, a German businesswoman arrived in Washington DC and promptly developed a painful sinus infection. She searched online and found a local doctor, Suzanne Doud Galli. But instead of ordering a taxi to visit Dr Galli’s office, the patient arranged a virtual consultation via her smartphone from the comfort of her hotel room, with the help of an app called HealthTap.

The app’s algorithm matched the patient’s symptoms with Dr Galli’s expertise. Dr Galli prescribed medicine and sent the prescription electronically to a pharmacy near the patient’s hotel — all in about 10 minutes.

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Home Remedies for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Some of the home remedies for chronic fatigue syndrome include the use of bee pollen, maca root, iodine, B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, ginseng, licorice, astragalus, alfalfa, oats, St. John’s Wort, and valerian root, as well as certain behavioral remedies including acupuncture and chiropractic care.
This unfortunate condition afflicts millions of people around the world, and while the small percentage in terms of the global population often leaves this disease below the radar, it can significantly affect the lives of those who suffer from it. Unfortunately, there is no clear cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, although experts believe that it can be a result of genetic, environmental, infectious, biologic, and psychological factors. That may seem like a wide range of possibilities, so most people treat the symptoms rather than whatever may be causing the condition. It is also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or post-viral fatigue syndrome. Someone is diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome if they experience the symptoms of the condition for more than 6 months.

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