MP3-Player ist nicht MP3-Player: Wir zeigen Ihnen die neusten und besten der aktuellen Hosentaschen-HiFis

Deciding not to eat sounds to most people the very definition of suicide. It is perhaps no surprise then that a new study concludes that when anorexics choose to take their own lives, they tend to employ some of the most lethal methods available. Yet, in many ways, the new research conducted at the University of Vermont represents a landmark shift in how doctors understand suicidal tendencies in patients suffering from anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. But psychologists previously believed that those high rates of death were due to patients' already deteriorated physical state. The hypothesis was that these are people already on the verge of death — they were so malnourished and underweight that even the slightest suicide attempt could easily lead to death.

The new study's authors have shown this assumption is wrong in most cases. Extrapolating from nine case studies of anorexics in Germany and Boston, they concluded that such suicides are not simply a call for help gone wrong, but that anorexics are genuinely determined to die when they attempt to kill themselves. Some of the disturbing means the nine patients profiled used included jumping in front of moving trains, ingesting dangerous household cleaners and setting one's self on fire. These patients also tended to isolate themselves before their suicide attempt, most likely in order to reduce the possibility they would receive life-saving help. "We established that these patients' death had little to do with their low body weight," says lead author Jill Holm-Denoma, a professor of clinical psychology at Vermont and an expert on treating eating disorders. "The methods that they chose could have killed anyone."

Holm-Denoma's work reaffirms, among many others, a 2003 Harvard University study that concluded anorexic women are, by nature of their illness, self-destructive, leading them to have a likelier propensity toward suicide as well as alcohol abuse. That study of about 250 women suffering eating disorders showed the risk of death by suicide among by anorexic women to be as much as 57 times the expected rate of a healthy woman. Research on suicide in 2006 by psychologist Thomas Joiner at Florida State University took those conclusions one step further and suggested anorexics habituate to pain, making them fearless of death, and thus more likely choose a more lethal means to end their lives. Holm-Denoma's research, however, is one of the first studies of the specific methods that suicidal anoxerics use. The gruesome methods they chose as well as how they isolated themselves from rescue, Holm-Denoma says, leaves little doubt that they wished to die.

The new findings, to be published this spring in the Journal of Affective Disorders, come during this year's National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. As many as 10 million women and one million men in the United States suffer from an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia, according to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA). Females between the ages of 15 and 24 are 12 times more likely to die from anorexia than all other causes of death, the NEDA reports. And suicide is the primary cause of death for anorexics, greater even than starvation. Holm-Denoma stresses her research highlights how seriously treatment providers must take suicide risks amongst those suffering from eating disorders. "The likelihood of whether a patient wants to lethally hurt herself must be assessed right away," Holm-Denoma says, adding, "Addressing psychiatric needs must be paramount."

For the families of anorexics, Holm-Denoma's research only affirms their worst fears. One of the biggest frustrations these families face when their loved one is diagnosed with anorexia is how they can obtain affordable psychiatric help. Insurers rarely pick up the bill. Most health plans argue that eating disorders require mental health treatment not covered by most policies and therefore refuse to pay for long-term care. In the direst cases, health plans will often cover a brief hospitalization to stabilize a patient's weight. But once she begins to gain weight again, she will be sent home. "The biological crisis may have passed," says Barbara Anthony, a Boston-based lawyer and executive director of Health Law Advocates, an organization that aids families. "But hospitals and health plans have done little to provide these patients with the mental health care they desperately need."

Meanwhile, costs related to in-patient treatment for an eating disorder can range from $25,000 to $30,000 a month. Many families are forced to take out second mortgages or deplete savings. Such situations are tragic, Holm-Denoma says. "Anorexia is one of the most serious psychiatric diseases our society faces," she says. "Our work shows even further that more needs to be done to prevent it."

Eine große Schuldenlast drückt nicht nur auf die Psyche, sondern belastet auch Wirbelsäule und Gelenke

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The International Association of Dental and Medical Disciplines®, a professional association of dentists and physicians, allows their doctor members to provide virtually just what the doctor ordered with Aetna and CIGNA’s decisions to reimburse doctors for online visits. IADMD® welcomes doctors to take this important step to move into the 21st century and out of the patient waiting room with no traffic jams, no long waits and no inconvenience which costs the same as regular office visits.

(PRWEB) February 28, 2008 -- The International Association of Dental and Medical Disciplines®, a professional association of dentists and physicians dedicated to patient advocacy and promoting their doctor-led version of universal health care, and its founder, Dr. John J. Ryan, DMD, offer the means for new online services aimed primarily at individuals who already are patients of the doctors.

Aetna and CIGNA have agreed to reimburse doctors for these visits and many more insurance companies are expected to follow. According to Dr. Melissa Welch, Aetna’s Northern California medical director, “People can wait a long time to get in to see their primary care doctor and longer for a specialist... to have immediate access is huge.” The Los Angeles Times reports, “The virtual visits are considered best for follow-up consultations and treatment for minor ailments such as colds and sore throats.”

“We are not an IT services company; we are a chartered professional society of doctors of all disciplines that gives our members free access to our IT department as a membership benefit. We are doctors working for doctors with insight to the entire claims process from the doctors’ perspective and we are operational with private HIPAA secure servers using 128 / 256 bit encryption that allows for private patient portals for virtual visits, and online bill pay, so effectively the virtual visit and co-pay can be one-in-done,” says Dr. Ryan, a dentist in East Hampstead, New Hampshire, and a Dental Examiner for the North East Regional Board of Dental Examiners. “These sessions are custom for each doctor member in accordance to their needs. We are working privately with each doctor member and their insurers to ensure reimbursement as agreed. As patient advocacy and privacy concerns are our number one concerns, teams of lawyers have been consulted on what is needed to ensure HIPAA compliancy. With legal direction in the infrastructure, these sessions are not susceptible to tampering or leakage that could affect a patient’s employability or insurability as it is not done via email. It uses the 128 / 256 bit encryption that allow for these private patient portals to show up only the doctor’s HIPAA secure server, thus, there is no access to the data via the World Wide Web. The only way the visit can be viewed is by the doctor logging onto the HIPAA secured server to which only the doctor has access.”

IADMD® calls this a major milestone for its members who already get a free doctor web site and free hosting, online bill pay, prescription refill service, and email services using HIPAA secure technology. IADMD will continue to provide virtual services linking patients with their dentists and physicians via a secure doctors web site system that allows them to coordinate individual patients’ care with online forms, such as virtual visits, tailored to each office’s needs.

About IADMD
IADMD is an association of doctors of all disciplines united to resolve overall health care with a doctor-led universal health care model that tunnels support through their doctors web sites. Dedicated to promote, protect, and advance human life, the IADMD® mission is to gain membership of doctors and with strength in numbers help their mission to put health care back in the hands of doctors. The doctors’ web sites help doctors and physicians put patient advocacy first and keep doctors in charge of medicine and patient care decisions while communicating with one another under one umbrella. The IADMD doctor-led universal health care plan recommends allowing unbiased teams of two physicians and two dentists from the association to stand before insurance commissioners in every state, to oversee and stop problems before they happen, and to intervene and correct when they are found to have gone awry. For more information on membership in IADMD, visit www.IADMD.org.

Media Contact: Tasha Pratt
Company Name: IADMD.org
Email: CustomerService (at) iadmd.org
Phone: (603) 382-7675

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