Tebogo Temana

Think about what it would be like to spend most of your time alone because being around other people is just too difficult. You feel that others are judging you for your mental illness, and so you are scared to face the world. You withdraw to avoid this stigmatization. This social withdrawal is emotionally very costly. But this is a two-way street — the mentally ill withdraw from society–society withdraws from them. An Australian survey reported that two-thirds of people affected by a mental illness feel lonely “often” or “all of the time”. The research says in contrast, just 10 percent of the general population reported feelings of loneliness. (1)  Social relationships are important for anyone in maintaining health, but for the mentally ill it is especially important. People with mental illness value contact with family. But families may be unwilling to interact with their mentally ill family member. Social isolation is also sometimes due to the unwillingness of others to b...

Although pregnancy is a normal, healthy state, changes that occur in an expectant mother’s body can produce a range of relatively minor but troublesome ailments. Many symptoms are a result of high levels of placental hormones in the mother’s circulation (mainly oestrogen and progesterone), but as pregnancy progresses the increasing size of the fetus produces physical stresses on the body that can also give rise to uncomfortable symptoms. Losing weight this early is not uncommon, and in a few weeks things will begin to shift in the other direction. You may also be experiencing other early pregnancy symptoms. The value of the signs and symptoms of pregnancy and of the pregnancy diagnostic test as predictors of pregnancy was estimated for 1,592 women seen in general practice. The presence of a sign or symptom alone is a poor pointer to a diagnosis of pregnancy. The combination of pairs of features improves the value, the best being breast signs combined with either the presence of sig...