Screening Tool for Depression and Anxiety Available via iPhone
My Mood Monitor, a website for mental health screening, has introduced depressioncheck, a free, mobile version of their M-3 Checklist, a scientifically validated screening tool for mood and anxiety disorders that can now be used via Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. It can be found in the Itunes App Store.
Adapted from the online version, the mobile version provides a short series of questions that measure indicators of mental health. Developed by a team of mental health practitioners and experts, the checklist takes only three minutes to complete. It is ideal to fill out in the waiting room prior to an appointment with a general practitioner so the doctor can be made aware of potential problems in the area of mental health. Depressioncheck is appropriate for those 18 years and older and its accuracy was confirmed in an article published in the Annals of Family Medicine in March 2010.
We recommend My Mood Monitor and the new mobile application as simple and reliable screening tools that can assess the presence of unipolar and bipolar mood and anxiety disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and PTSD. Read more
Track Your Moods with Life Charting
If you have unipolar depression or bipolar disorder and are having trouble stabilizing your mood, we recommend nightly charting of mood, medications and side effects on the easy-to-use Monthly Mood Chart Personal Calendar (pictured below) or the National Institute of Mental Health Life Chart (NIMH-LCM), both of which are available for download.
Sample Mood Chart
Click on the Life Charts tab above to download the personal calendar, which includes space for rating mood, functioning, hours of sleep, life events, side effects, and other symptoms such as anxiety. Then bring the chart to each visit with your physician to help in the assessment of treatments.
Life charting can help determine which medications are working partially and need to be augmented further, and which need to be eliminated because of side effects. Since there are now many potential treatments for depression and bipolar disorder (some FDA-approved and some not), a careful assessment of how well each new treatment works for a particular patient is essential to finding the optimal treatment regimen.
One Expert’s Personal Treatment Algorithm for Bipolar Disorder in Young Children
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Gagin Joshi of Massachusetts General Hospital, who presented the work on carbamazepine and lamotrigine on page 1 provided us with his own general treatment algorithm for youngsters with bipolar disorder.
Omega-3 Fatty Acids (photo from ironmagazine.com)
Joshi typically starts with 0.5 to 2 gms of omega-3 fatty acids because of their benign side-effects profile, the many studies suggesting they are effective in adult mood disorders, and a recent article indicating that they were effective in preventing the conversion of prodromal schizophrenia into full-blown illness in a randomized double-blind controlled study in Australia.
After the omega-3 fatty acids, Joshi’s second choice is typically the atypical antipsychotic aripiprazole (Abilify) because of its lesser degree of weight gain compared to atypicals quetiapine (Seroquel) or risperidone (Risperidol). Risperidone can be a third option if aripiprazole is not effective or tolerated.
New, More User-Friendly Mood Chart!
Sample Mood Chart
We’ve just posted a more attractive and user-friendly mood chart you can use to keep track of your illness, how you respond to your medications, and any side effects you may experience. See Life Charting for Patients, or download the chart here:
You can print extras of pages 5 and 6 for each following month.
