Patient resources
On this page:
- Youth Mental Health
- Understanding Depression
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
- Early Warning Signs
- Employment Success: Strategies to Help
- Exercise & your mood
- Family & Carer Support: Stress vulnerability model
- Maximizing Memory: Strategies to help your memory
- Mental Health: Relapse & Recovery
- Relapse Prevention Plan: Strategies to help
- Stress: Strategies to help manage
- Why is taking anti-depressant or anti-psychotic medication so important?
- Managing Pain
- CARES: Centre for Autism Research Evaluation Service
Youth Mental Health
The Brain & Mind Research Institute (BMRI), is offering clinical services to young people at a high risk of developing a mental disorder / poor health outcome or have a newly diagnosed mental health disorder.
In this youth initiative, we are specifically concerned about young people who in their life experience a sustained change in their behaviour, have 'non-specic symptoms' or an unclear mental health diagnosis (such as anxiety, irritability, mood changes and instability, poor concentration, sleep disturbance, decreased motivation and social withdrawal from friends and family), may be using substances/drugs, or have 'specific symptoms' (such as unusual thoughts, changes to the way they perceive or understand the world, their safety and their environment).
Understanding Depression
Depression and anxiety commonly occur together. Often people first experience anxiety in their teens or early twenties, and then go on to have depression in their late twenties to early thirties. The identification and provision of effective treatment in young people can help to prevent a lifetime of anxiety and depression.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Most of us attribute our feelings to events and situations. What we often do not realize is that it is not the event as such, but our interpretation of the event that affects how we feel. In saying this, we cannot change the situation or event. What we can change however, is our interpretation of it. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) has been used successfully in the treatment of a number of psychological difficulties such as depression, social anxiety, panic disorder and psychosis.
Early Warning Signs
Employment Success: Strategies to Help
Exercise & your mood
It is a commonly held belief that exercise is good for people's health. Family doctors have long recommended exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle and it is one way of maintaining fitness and avoiding obesity. What about mental health? Does regular exercise help people manage their troubles?
Family & Carer Support: Stress vulnerability model
Stress is a normal human experience that occurs every day of our lives. In some situations it can help us by motivating us to do things, however when this stress becomes too great it begins to inhibit our ability to manage our lives effectively, and promote the recovery process.
Maximizing Memory: Strategies to help your memory
Memory is a little like a filing system. Information has been filed somewhere but it may be difficult for you to find it unless you know which drawer to look in. If you are given a clue or prompt, it will help you to find it.
Mental Health: Relapse & Recovery
Targeted interventions and education programs aim to enable the young person to recognise their early signs of relapse so as to gain control over an event they may fear and not feel at the 'mercy of their illness'.
Relapse Prevention Plan: Strategies to help
Relapse is a subsequent episode of mental illness. It is a recurrence of symptoms of mental illness similar to those that have previously been experienced.
Stress: Strategies to help manage
We all experience stress in our lives from time to time. The good news; this is not a bad thing, in fact it is normal. It's how we react to stress that makes all the difference.
Why is taking anti-depressant or anti-psychotic medication so important?
Taking your anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medication regularly each day helps to stimulate BDNF in the brain. It is neuroprotective - that is it helps support the survival of existing neurons in the brain, and encourages the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses. All this helps to improve your brain function.
Managing Pain
Pain is something we all experience. Usually it serves us well as a warning alarm that something might be wrong, and pushes us to take action to put it right again. However, there are many medical conditions that are associated with persistent pain. There are also some situations where the pain system goes wrong, and the warning alarm of pain does not switch itself off even when the problem that set it off has been solved. Similarly in these situations, ongoing pain can cause a lot of problems - poor sleep, difficulties with activities such as household chores, working or enjoyable activities, or feeling anxious or depressed about the pain and the future.
Research over the past twenty years has shown that there are a number of strategies that you can use to better manage your pain, and reduce the effect that it has on your life. Here are a few to get you started.