If you will be attending the International Neuropsychological Society’s 42^nd Annual Meeting in Seattle this week, make sure to stop by the PAR booth. We will be exhibiting in the Metropolitan Ballroom on the third floor of the Sheraton Seattle Hotel. Meet PAR staff, place your orders, and learn about our new products. Remember, you’ll receive 15% off all orders placed during the conference plus free domestic shipping and handling. We look forward to seeing you!

A recent study of 648 older adults in India suggests that those who were bilingual developed dementia more than four years later, on average, than those who spoke only one language—regardless of educational level.

Published recently in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), the study found that speaking two languages seems to have a protective effect against three types of dementia: Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, and vascular dementia.

“Speaking more than one language is thought to lead to better development of the areas of the brain that handle executive functions and attention tasks, which may help protect from the onset of dementia,” said study author Suvarna Alladi, DM, with Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad, India, in a press release from the AAN.

The study subjects, all of whom were diagnosed with dementia, had an average age of 66. Approximately half spoke two or more languages; 14 percent were illiterate.

“These results offer strong evidence for the protective effect of bilingualism against dementia in a population very different from those studied so far in terms of its ethnicity, culture and patterns of language use,” Alladi said.

To learn more or to read the full article online, visit the Neurology Web site.

Despite a downward trend in the number of Americans who smoke, individuals with mental illness are still as likely to smoke today as they were in 2004, according to data from the federal Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. The study looked at the time period of 2004 to 2011, when smoking rates in the general population fell 14%, though the rate of smokers with mental illness remained unchanged.

In 2011, about 25% of individuals with mental illnesses reported being smokers, while only about 16.5% of the general population reported smoking.

Individuals with mental illnesses who were undergoing treatment, however, showed greater quit rates than those who were not receiving treatment (37% versus 33%).

The full report appears in the January 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Can’t stop checking your e-mail? Feel phantom vibrations even when your phone isn’t in your pocket? You aren’t alone. Occupational psychologist Emma Russell has released new research that indicates workers obsessed with checking e-mail may actually be damaging their mental health.

Dr. Russell, of London’s Kingston University, analyzed the e-mail of employees across many different types of companies to see which habits had positive or negative influences on their work lives. Many of the habits were thought to be positive traits by the employees, yet had negative effects, as well.

“This research reminds us that even though we think we are using strategies for dealing with our e-mail at work, many of them can be detrimental to other goals and the people we work with,” said Dr. Russell, who presented her Seven Deadly E-mail Sins at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference. According to Dr. Russell, the Seven Deadly E-mail Sins, when used in moderation, are fine, but can have a negative impact if they are not handled correctly. For example, while workers may check e-mail outside of business hours to stay on top of work, it may also mean they have trouble switching between work and home life. While responding immediately to e-mails may show concern and interest, it may take the sender away from other tasks needing concentration.

The seven sins include: ping pong (constant e-mails back and forth, creating long chains), e-mailing outside of work hours, e-mailing around others, ignoring e-mails, requesting read receipts, responding immediately to an e-mail alert, and sending automated replies.

Among PAR’s newest and most innovative products, the Vocabulary Assessment Scales (VAS) present highly realistic, full-color digital photographs to measure the breadth of an individual’s vocabulary and oral language development. This complementary pair of assessments measure both expressive (VAS-E) and receptive (VAS-R) vocabulary.  Norm-referenced and designed for simple administration and scoring, the VAS-E and VAS-R can be used individually or in combination throughout an individual’s life span.

Click the video link above to view a short interview with VAS author Rebecca Gerhardstein-Nader, PhD, and learn more about the features and benefits of this exciting new product!

https://vimeo.com/82204714

It’s that time of year….

During the winter months, people are more likely to report feeling tired, depressed, or sad. For many of us, these feelings are a normal response to less sunlight, and an occasional case of the “winter blues” is mild and manageable. Others, however, are struggling with the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a clinical form of depression. What is the difference between the two?

In a recent interview published by the American Psychological Association, SAD expert Kelly Rohan, PhD, explains the signs of the disorder and potential treatments. Rohan is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Vermont who specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy, theory of depression, and SAD.

According to Rohan, SAD is a pattern of major depressive episodes during the fall and winter months, with periods of full improvement in the winter and spring. “The symptoms of SAD are exactly the same as non-seasonal depression symptoms, which can include a loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyed activities, excessive fatigue, difficulty concentrating, a significant change in sleep length and thoughts about death or suicide. The only difference with SAD is the seasonal pattern it follows,” says Rohan in the APA interview.

Widely used treatments for SAD include light therapy, that is, daily exposure to bright artificial light during the months when depressive episodes occur; anti-depressant medications are sometimes prescribed, as well. In recent years, however, Rohan’s lab has been researching the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for SAD. “CBT is a type of talk therapy used and researched extensively for non-seasonal depression since the 1960s, but we are the first group to apply the treatment to SAD,” Rowan says. “The CBT for SAD treatment we have been testing includes 12 structured sessions, delivered two times per week over six weeks in the winter. The sessions focus on developing skills to improve coping with the seasons. The therapist works with the patient to foster two types of skills: behavioral (doing) skills and cognitive (thinking) skills. The behavioral skills involve identifying, scheduling and doing pleasurable, engaging activities every day in the winter. Over time, these proactive behaviors are meant to counteract the down, lethargic mood and the tendency to give in to ‘hibernation’ urges that are so common in SAD. The cognitive skills involve learning to identify and challenge negative thoughts when experiencing SAD symptoms.”

In Rohan’s clinical trial, patients who had been treated with CBT generally had better outcomes than those who had been treated with light therapy alone. “These results suggest that treating someone initially with just CBT may be more effective in the long term,” says Rohan. “My lab is completing a study to find out if these results hold in a larger, more definitive study funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health.”

What do you think? Could CBT be a promising treatment option for clients with SAD? PAR wants to hear from you, so leave a comment and join the conversation!

Last week, PAR staff delivered gifts to a deserving local veteran's family.

All of us here at PAR want to send you our warmest wishes for a very happy holiday season. We look forward to helping you and those you serve in 2014. May your New Year be filled with peace, love, and joy!

This year, PAR staff worked with two organizations to spread holiday joy to those in need, by fulfilling the wishes from an Angel Tree for the children and teens served by the Joshua House and by adopting a veteran's family through Service Source, part of Abilities Foundation. Click on the attached links to learn more about these incredible organizations and learn how you can get involved.

Too shy to order your extra cheese, hold-the-ketchup, no onion, double bacon burger? No need to feel alone. According to new research, people tend to keep their orders simple – not because that’s what they want, but to avoid embarrassment (whether that’s the judgment of the salesperson or the disapproving eye of other customers).

A group of professors researched the methods in which a shift in retail practices reduced human interaction and found that there was a change in purchasing behavior when there was less interaction during the ordering process. Even in situations where there was a low potential for social embarrassment, people would redirect their ordering behaviors in order to limit potential for embarrassment.

Using true-life cases, the researchers first looked at a Swedish liquor retailer. When the stores switched from a model where a clerk had to retrieve bottles for the customer to a self-service model, sales increased 20 percent. Furthermore, sales shifted – with difficult-to-pronounce beverages seeing an increase in sales. Sales of difficultly named drinks increased 7 percent once people did not have to worry about mispronunciation (and the embarrassment that comes along with that).

Next, the researchers looked at a pizza chain. Customers who ordered online weren’t ashamed to load up on additional toppings or ask for complex orders. Pizzas ordered online were 15 percent more complex than those the same customers ordered over the phone (coincidentally, these orders were also more expensive and higher in calories).

Researchers believe that these changes in ordering behavior are due to the fact that social pressure usually pushes people toward the norm. But remove that layer of human interaction and judgment, and people are free to explore new options as well as express their more finicky (or embarrassing) tastes.

Would you be more willing to place a picky order if no one was watching?

Join Lisa Firestone for a continuing education workshop titled “Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice,” January 24-26 at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

This workshop will help you learn to deal effectively with a critical “inner voice” in all aspects of life, teaching participants how to overcome destructive inner thoughts and cope more effectively.

Lisa Firestone is the coauthor of the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts^™ and Firestone Assessment of Suicide Intent^™ (FAST^™-FASI^™), the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts™ (FAVT™), and the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts^™-Adolescent (FAVT-A^™).

 

Click here for more information or to register for the workshop.

A new study by researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia shows that rates of depression vary significantly from country to country—and patterns of depression worldwide can be quite surprising. The highest rates were reported in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, where more than 5 percent of the population suffers from depression. The lowest rates were in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australia/New Zealand. The least depressed country is Japan, with a rate of less than 2.5 percent. On average, approximately 4 percent of the world’s population has been diagnosed with depression. The study also calculated the “burden of depression” for each country, that is, the number of healthy years lost to depression or depression-related premature death. Using this metric, depression becomes the second-leading cause of disability worldwide.

The authors of the study caution that their findings were based on preexisting data on the prevalence, incidence, and duration of depression; therefore, factors such as access to diagnosis and cultural attitudes about mental illness may have skewed results. The authors of the study also said that reliable surveys from some poorer countries were not available.

The Washington Post created a map of clinical depression rates based on the Queensland study; click on the link to learn more about these findings.