Australian Heart Foundation

Australian Heart Foundation.

 

Living in  latitude 43degrees south, you become used to the piecing winds that inhabit this part of the world. Winds that wander around the world due no doubt to the lack of any major landmass to impede their journey. Other than South America it is plain sailing. A fact much appreciated in the age of sail when sailing vessels followed the forties latitude. It is little wonder that this region became known as the roaring forties.

Local walking groups, sponsored the Australian Heart Foundation in Southern Tasmania have in recent years been encouraging people to undertake regular daily exercise in an attempt to enable everyone to seriously take their physical and dietary responsibility to healthy living seriously. The never ending march of inactivity in the modern world needs to be countered. The Kettering Walkers as our local group is called is one such group, ex-heart attack victims among others who confront the roaring forties on their twice weekly walk. Not that the wind presents a daily problem, but on occasions the members have learnt to put their heads down and plod into the occasional wall of hail and rain.

Some found their way into the group from the Royal Hobart Hospital heart rehab programme, where valiant nursing staff attempt to correct a life time of bad habits. Others join simply for the disciplined walking programme that takes them to more distant corners of our island. New comers to the district also have the opportunity to make new friends.

My own introduction occurred after a minor heart attack on a steep local mountain caused by a blocked artery. This required the insert of a u shaped hoop to hopefully hold it open.

I would highly recommend that anyone wishing to join such a group do so, after all we only live once.

Mental Health and the role of Trauma.

Mental Health and the role of Trauma.

 

Collecting dead and wounded soldier from a battle field requires a spirit of steel. A personality able to look beyond the present towards a future of hope, a world that somehow will make meaningful the current carnage and loss of life, a belief in a better world. If you searched for an experience to change your life this surely would have to be it. Unfortunately such experiences often continue to haunt us making expulsion impossible. Memory has a habit of returning to inhabit the present.

There is a continuing debate among psychologists about the cause of mental distress, the nature-nurture dilemma. Whether mental health is the result of our biological genes or alternatively the product of daily circumstances. People behave differently, have different personalities resulting in different reactions to traumatic events.

An old friend from my youth had the misfortune to find himself in the middle of one of the last conventional wars, the Korean War, acting as a stretcher bearer. An experience that bordered at times on the inhuman not that all conflicts don't exemplify such. Stationed near a Turkish army unit, who’s members took turns each night to steal out and cut a few Chinese throats. The collection of the dead and dying by day coupled with this activity at night resulted in his developing a major alcohol problem. Unable to cope with everyday living he was condemned to a living hell, rarely being in a sober state.

Such are not uncommon problems with ex-servicemen, particularly historically were they were simper[y discharged and expected to re-enter normal life. Some are able to departmentise bad experiences, to shut them up in a secret cupboard and throw away the key, others never seem able to do so. With the current wave of throat cutting it seems reasonable to seek some understanding of the whys for such extreme actions.

Various psychological studies support the view that childhood trauma is substantially associated with an increased risk of psychosis. The study did not specify particular age groups, but as long as they were under 18years they were included. 41 studies [Filippo Varese and Colleagues] found evidence that childhood adversity is substantially associated with an increased risk for psychosis. The implication of these findings suggest that primary prevention is urgently needed in our detention centres in terms of policy towards refugee children. Specific types of adverse events include abuse, neglect, parental death, sexual abuse, not to mention exposure to war and parental separation.

It seems reasonable to suggest that current Australian Government policy of the detention of refugee children for extended periods of time often years is creating perfect conditions for psychosis. Is it not possible that this policy is encouraging possible future recruits for terrorist organizations. Social factors play the strongest role in the origin of mental health problems, this is a serious question that needs to be addressed by government