Harvard Mental Health Letter articles from March 2004

Harvard Mental Health Letter archives from March 2004

Problem gambling.
March 1, 2004... Addicted gamblers take bad risks with their money and their lives. They can be helped to recover both. Gambling has become increasingly legitimate and socially acceptable. Most states have legalized it in some form, and it's one of the...

Psychosocial treatment of bipolar disorder.
March 1, 2004... Drug treatment is essential but insufficient. Fortunately, there are many other ways to help bipolar patients cope with their symptoms and manage their lives. Bipolar or manic-depressive disorder is one of the better understood psychiatric...

How not to be happy.
March 1, 2004... In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003, an economist proposes to explain why people so often stubbornly refuse to take the advice of moralists -- that happiness comes from paying attention to your...

In Brief; Eating disorders and culture.
March 1, 2004... The eating disorders anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa (see Mental Health Letter, July 2002, and February and March 2003) are sometimes regarded as culture-bound syndromes -- characteristic of present social conditions, rather than simply...

Questions & Answers; Multi-infarct dementia and memantine.
March 1, 2004... Q We've been told that my wife has multi-infarct dementia and that the drug memantine may help. How is her condition different from Alzheimer's disease, and what could memantine do for her? A Dementia is a weakened ability to think or...