The tablets with no side effects

Shortly after moving into a dementia care home last yr, Jeannette Williams produced a exceptional discovery: the iPad. At the age of 74, she had lost her husband, her property and a lot of her freedom, but the touch-display tablet has provided her a new lease of lifestyle. As an alternative of being caught in front of the tv, she can now go through news, perform video games, listen to music and view videos. Best of all, it has rekindled her passion for pottery.

“Through my operate, I meet great, intriguing, once- independent individuals who, via no fault of their personal, have lost touch with hobbies and interests, entry to understanding and choice-making expertise,” he says. “They are bored and depressed, staring into space whilst an huge Television blares out Jeremy Kyle. Touch-screen technologies has massive likely to reconnect them. With an iPad, you can look up someone’s favourite song on YouTube or discover their childhood residence on Street See. That’s a enormous, positive shift in power.”

Prof Dominic Upton, director of wellness psychology study at the University of Worcester, agrees. In 2011, his examine on the high quality of daily life for people with dementia in eleven care properties identified that tablets helped residents reminisce about constructive occasions in their lives, create much better relationships with personnel and deal with sensible issues this kind of as producing menu alternatives.

A single of the most heartening findings was the way in which the engineering bridged the age gap. “I was amazed by how a lot the iPads enhanced interaction between residents and their carers, several of whom were younger and inexperienced,” says Prof Upton. “Also, grandchildren would come to pay a visit to and say, ‘This is how BBC iPlayer works’ or they would check out YouTube together. The engineering has fantastic likely to carry generations collectively.”

With help from her carers, Mrs Williams has bought her personal iPad. Tablets need not be prohibitively costly: Tesco’s Hudl costs about £120, and ex-show iPads sell for about £250. Even now, it’s critical to know when to depart the iPad alone, says Lloyd-Yeates. “Sometimes individuals just want human connection, not gizmos.”

Check out aliveactivities.org and memoryappsfordementia.org

To discover how companies can become a lot more dementia-friendly observe the Alzheimer’s Society’s new video at youtube.com/watch?v=Fz8ACEu7Lho

The tablets with no side effects

Is Britain hooked on happy tablets?

The proof on the positive aspects of antidepressants is also weak. In randomised trials antidepressants minimize scores on depression rating scale only a fraction much more than a placebo or dummy tablet. The variation is almost certainly as well little to be clinically relevant, and, rather than indicating a specific impact on depression, it may possibly basically be a consequence of taking a substance with noticeable psychological and bodily effects.

Antidepressants are not as toxic as some medication prescribed for psychological disorders, but they have substantial adverse effects nonetheless. It is well-recognised that they minimize libido and interfere with sexual overall performance, and in some isolated circumstances this impact has been reported to persist after the antidepressant is stopped. As well as suppressing sex drive, they can numb people’s feelings and induce feelings of lethargy. Some modern antidepressants lead to unpleasant feelings of agitation or irritability, which arise most frequently in younger people. Most worrying of all, there is proof that antidepressants sometimes induce suicidal emotions, again specially in the young.

Though they had been initially trumpeted as not being habit-forming, it has been apparent for several many years that some individuals expertise unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when they discontinue antidepressants. In a small quantity of people discontinuation symptoms are intense and protracted.

In my clinical knowledge, several people just carry on taking their antidepressant simply because they are also fearful to cease, and investigation in common practice confirms that men and women are taking these drugs for longer and longer intervals.

Being depressed from time to time is a universal human knowledge. Some men and women endure from low moods far more than other folks, but there is no goal way of saying when this is abnormal and when it is not. Diagnosing people with a medical disorder and prescribing a pill may possibly seem to offer an simple response, but in reality it stores up more troubles than it solves.

By encouraging folks to view their problems as a disease, which is outdoors their handle, antidepressants might make men and women less assured to manage their issues in the extended-run. As a society, our dependence on antidepressants helps make us significantly less resilient and much less resourceful in the encounter of the everyday challenges of modern residing.

Dr Joanna Moncrieff is consultant psychiatrist at North East London NHS basis trust and writer of The Bitterest Tablets

Is Britain hooked on happy tablets?