Ex-England and Lancashire cricketer Andrew “Freddy” Flintoff presented a candid and insightful documentary on depression and professional sport, titled “The hidden side of sport,” which was shown on BBC One on 11 January. He met with other famous sportsmen, all of who had been affected by depression; such as former professional footballer, now turned Hollywood […]
Tag: depression
Harriet Vickers: Psychiatry to save the world: Lars von Trier’s Melancholia
Lars von Trier has made no secret of the fact he’s suffered from depression. At the beginning of 1997 he was hospitalised with the condition, saying it left him incapacitated for six months. Whilst the film he wrote during this period, Antichrist, was an explicit nightmare borne from the experience (genital self-mutilation, graphic torture, talking […]
Research highlights – 2 September 2011
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. […]
Tiago Villanueva: Financial austerity and health in Portugal
Financial austerity in Europe has been a hot topic in the news lately. But the spotlight in Europe over the past few weeks has definitely been on a small and overlooked European country that is considered peripheral. Portugal, buried in debt, has just followed in the steps of Greece and Ireland by becoming the next country to […]
Domhnall MacAuley on public health in Hong Kong
When your fellow passengers wear surgical masks, you complete a health declaration with your landing card and, pass through a line of heat detectors before passport control, you know public health is taken seriously. Travelling to the WONCA 2009 (World Organization of National Colleges, Academies) Asia Pacific conference in Hong Kong was always going to be […]
Richard Lehman’s journal blog, 8 June 2009
Newborn babies feature in Richard’s blog this week, as he finds out how extremely premature babies fare with modern neonatal care, and how a baby’s weight in its first three months can affect its weight in the future. Tuberculosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are among the other things that Richard tells us about, as […]
William Lee and the “I’m lucky to be alive” patient
In early November 2008 a woman in her 30s who lives alone in London decided that she wanted to die. She was depressed. She felt that she only suffered and caused suffering to others, and that she did not deserve to live. Yet from the outside her life seemed fulfilling and successful. A graduate building […]
Tauseef Mehrali: Attack of the clipboards
I sat riveted through Kenneth Branagh’s perceptive portrayal of Ivanov in Chekhov’s eponymous play. Witnessing the desperate depression of the protagonist unfold I couldn’t help thinking how many points he would score on a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), a common screening tool for depression in primary care and a burdensome necessity for accurate clinical coding […]
Birte Twisselmann: It’s good to talk
Cracking up, to be broadcast this coming Sunday on BBC2, will be the second television programme to be broadcast in the context of the BBC’s Headroom campaign for mental health and wellbeing (bbc.co.uk/headroom). I had a preview at a screening organised by the Royal Society of Medicine. The documentary provided a moving insight into journalist […]