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The Daily Owl
Italian Journal of Psychology and Internet
Psicologia Online

WebPsych Partnership Member

ARCHIVIO

nelle pagine dell'archivio si ritrova la storia di
Italian Journal of Psychology and Internet - Psicologia Online
ma anche la storia della psicologia italiana e mondiale in rete
dal 1996 al 2000
(i link alle pagine web o alle immagini possono risultare datati e dunque errati)

mercoledì 27 febbraio 2008

Antidepressants, placebo was just as effective as the drugs

Antidepressants Hardly Help

Prozac is the world's most widely prescribed antidepressant; it has been used by more than 35 million people worldwide. While it cannot be said to

A new debate is sparked over the effectiveness of anti-depressants

Popular antidepressants including Prozac and Paxil have little impact on most patients, according to a comprehensive review of newly released data from trials that were conducted before the drugs were approved in the U.S.

Researchers from the U.K., U.S. and Canada analyzed results for fluoxetine (better known by the brand name Prozac), venlafaxine (Effexor), nefazodone (Serzone) and paroxetine (Paxil or Seroxat) — all members of a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The researchers’ paper, published this week in the journal PLoS Medicine, claims that only patients who are diagnosed “at the upper end of the very severely depressed category” get any meaningful benefit from the widely prescribed drugs. For the others, the paper says, antidepressants are barely more effective than a placebo (although patients suffering from depression, like those suffering from chronic pain, generally do see a substantial placebo benefit).

By LAURA BLUE/LONDON, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008, time.com

The creation of the Prozac myth

In the 20 years since its launch, 40m people worldwide have taken the so-called wonder drug - but research revealed this week shows that Prozac, and similar antidepressants, are no more effective than a sugar pill. So how was the myth created? Psychoanalyst Darian Leader traces the irrepressible rise of the multibillion dollar depression industry, while others explore the clinical and cultural impact of Prozac, its perceived personal benefits - and sometimes terrible costs.

Has the depression bubble finally burst? Yesterday’s headlines about the inefficacy of Prozac and other bestselling antidepressants must have been an unpleasant shock, not only to the drug manufacturers, but also to the millions of people in the UK taking these drugs. The new research, published in the Public Library of Science Journal, found that a placebo was just as effective as the drugs - excepting in some cases of severe depression, where it was not the drugs that did well, but the placebos that did worse.

guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/27

ROMA - E’ il farmaco che a metà degli anni Novanta ha sconvolto l’Europa e rivoluzionato il campo della terapia antidepressiva, una pasticca cui sono stati dedicati libri, canzoni, film, persino il nome di un gruppo punk. E’ il Prozac, ovvero Fluoxetina cloridrato, comunemente detto Fluoxetina, e secondo un recente studio inglese la sua efficacia curativa sarebbe quasi completamente nulla. Stando a una ricerca dell’equipe del professor Irving Kirsch dell’Università di Hull, pubblicata sulla rivista on line “Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine”, la pasticca usata in tutto il mondo per curare depressione, disturbi ossessivi-compulsivi, bulimia nervosa e attacchi di panico avrebbe nella maggior parte dei casi un mero effetto placebo.

Lo studio, ha precisato Kirsch, è stato presentato alla FDA (l’ente americano per il controllo sui farmaci) e sarà sottoposto anche alle autorità regolatorie europee. Gli antidepressivi come Prozac and Seroxat, stando alla ricerca, indurrebbero miglioramenti minimi rispetto al placebo, valutabili in due punti sulla scala Hamilton della depressione, che si compone in tutto di 51 punti. Questo è stato sufficiente perché le molecole in questione ottenessero l’autorizzazione alla commercializzazione, ma, sottolinea la rivista, in Gran Bretagna non sarebbe dovuto bastare. L’Istituto nazionale per l’eccellenza clinica (Nice) stabilisce che sono necessari tre punti sulla scala Hamilton per stabilire una differenza clinica significativa.

“Stando ai risultati - ha osservato il professor Kirsch - non sembrano esserci grandi motivi per prescrivere gli antidepressivi se non alle persone affette da depressione grave, qualora le terapie alternative non abbiano prodotto effetti. Questo studio solleva gravi interrogativi sul modo in cui vengono concesse le autorizzazioni per i farmaci e sulla divulgazione dei dati della sperimentazione”.

Sara Ficocelli in repubblica.it

A proposito della ricerca inglese, Giovanni Battista Cassano, ordinario di Psichiatria all’università di Pisa e medico di fama mondiale, ha più di un sospetto. In prima battuta, con grande fair play, sottolinea: «È uno studio interessante perché conferma ciò che già sappiamo». Poi, senza peli sulla lingua, aggiunge: «Questi farmaci sono quasi tutti fuori patent, cioè il loro brevetto è scaduto e vengono venduti come generici a prezzi molto bassi. Certo occupano un posto rilevante nel mercato, come per esempio la paroxetina (tra cui il Prozac, ndr) togliendo spazio a quelli nuovi» di cui è prossima l’immissione in commercio.

La ricerca inglese parla di un effetto minimo rispetto al placebo…
«Questa tesi è tirata per i capelli, ci sono migliaia di pazienti che li usano e ne sentono l’effetto, ci sono studi che ne dimostrano l’efficacia e poi c’è la pratica clinica».

Vuole dire che si tratta di una manovra commerciale…
«Le depressioni medio-lievi, peraltro diffusissime, possono rispondere bene anche a trattamenti alternativi. In università abbiamo condotto una sperimentazione su 360 pazienti, la metà dei quali seguiti con dei medicinali e l’altra metà con la psicoterapia e abbiamo avuto la stessa risposta dai due gruppi. Abbiamo ottenuto, cioè, la remissione completa dalla malattia in tre mesi nel 55 per cento dei casi e in nove mesi nell’80 per cento dei malati».

La rivista «Public library of science medicine» è tra quelle autorevoli nel mondo scientifico?
«Certo non è tra le prime trenta al mondo e non mi risulta neppure che abbia un impact factor (indice di importanza della pubblicazione, ndr) di rilievo, ammesso che ce l’abbia».

È possibile che questi farmaci siano iperprescritti?
«Può darsi che ce ne sia un uso improprio, ma di iperprescrizione non si può proprio parlare: l’Oms afferma che il 50 per cento dei casi non viene diagnosticato e che solo il 25-30 per cento è curato correttamente. L’Italia è poi ultima in Europa come consumo, anche se questi medicinali hanno anche altre indicazioni come, per esempio, il panico o la bulimia. Se ci sarà un’attenzione maggiore verso queste malattie, solo allora si registrerà anche un aumento delle ricette».

Monica Mercenaro, in ilgiornale.it

martedì 26 febbraio 2008

Tommaso Campanella in OpenLife Grid

Tommaso Campanella in OpenLife

Campanella OpenSim

openlifegrid.com

Campanella OpenSim

Interview - Sakai Openlife (Openlife founder)

February 12, 2008

As we reported earlier this week, Openlife is a promising new alternative grid to Second Life. Its founder, Sakai Openlife (RL: Steve Sima) is based in Brisbane and we caught up with him via Openlife’s Live Chat for a discussion on everything Openlife.

openlife1.jpg
Source: The Metaverse Journal

From: http://openlifegrid.com/Blogs

First a little background, I was invited as both the founder of the Openlife Grid and an active participant in the Opensimulator Project, to attend this event in Oulu, Finland.Not completely aware of what I was in for I can say before hand I was excited nonetheless but wasn’t prepared for what was to come. I think I could safely say what was presented pleasantly surprised and excited all that attended.I will try not to go too much into detail but provide pictures and videos with comment to help explain the event.Being from Australia -’Anything’ degrees is cold. Here you can see it really was cold on arrival… –>

martedì 12 febbraio 2008

Nursing Simulation (NESIM ) and GeoGlobe HealthGeographic

You can find Panels with Teleports of Both at

Maps for Health Mappe per la Salute

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Marebbe/166/18/751

NESIM Nursing Simulation


posted by Topher Zwiers on Cousins Pau
10 weeks, 1 day, 18 hours, 32 minutes, 30 seconds ago


http://bloghud.com/id/15851/

I'm attending a SL Community College group meeting. The focus of the meeting is a demonstration of the NESIM nursing education simulation. There's a group of about 10-15 folks; we all teleported to NEWG for a demonstration by JS Vavoom. He teaches Nurs Emergency Room Simulator is based on industry standard simulations: METI and Laerdal. Jon indicates that it's a few hours of learning curve for SL engagement. Orientation of 54 learners to Second Life was a challenge. Interesting thing - they've "given Lindens to students" in addition to the orientation matierals. Once the patient lies on the table, the monitors turn on. Instructor and student have control over the system via the HUDs - patient/instructor and nurse/learner. With the patient on the table, Jon increased the oxygen via the tank. In this simulation, the patient reported and pointed to chest pains; as the instructor, Jon changed the heart rhythm, and as the student, he started an IV, administered a lidocaine in The simulation - patient responses to learner/nurse actions - is mostly controlled by the instructor; at some later point, there will be scenarios scripted with automated responses. With the two HUDs controlling the simulation, it becomes possible to hav NESIM.org website.
at: Cousins Pau (31, 24, 514)

GeoGlobe


One of the wonderful things about Second Life is that in many ways it works just like real life. Daden was working on the DataGlobe when its Second Life neighbour, Hayduke Ebisu (this is his Second Life name, and he is based in the USA), who is active in environmental issues in Second Life and real life, saw what the group was doing. He said that he had someone that Daden should meet. That person was Stephane Zugzwang (another Second Life name, and based in France). (Second Life is very much about social networking and collaboration [4]) Stephane had built a 'VR Room' in Second Life. This is similar to the 720 degree 'bubble photos' that are sometimes found on the Web, where one can pan and zoom in all directions. In the Second Life version, the photo is pasted onto the inside of a huge 20 m sphere, with the viewer's avatar standing inside and looking at the image all around her/him.We all saw the potential to combine DataGlobe and VR Rooms. The resulting system was christened GeoGlobe (Figure 10[26]). GeoGlobe again shares the same NewsGlobe engine; all that changes is the final display UI (user interface). When a feed is selected the "points" of the feed fly out from a generator at the centre of the hollow sphere and "stick" to the map on the sphere wall at their correct locations. GeoGlobe also allows users to display multiple datasets, each in a different colour.









Figure 10Figure 10

GeoGlobe in Second Life.



GeoGlobe received extensive blog coverage and can be seen at [27]. The technology has since been used by the Swedish Embassy in Second Life to display locations of Swedish Embassies around the world. Readers interested in using GeoGlobe for their own data are invited to contact Corro Moseley in Second Life.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov

lunedì 11 febbraio 2008

Maps for Health Mappe per la Salute

Medicine Clinic Care Giving Non profit Health Mimir Italia Italy

Maps for Health Mappe per la Salute

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Marebbe/166/18/751

Medicina Neuroscienze Alzheimer MS Sclerosi Multipla Bambini Adulti Anziani Riabilitazione Medici Studenti Operatori Volontari

giovedì 7 febbraio 2008

Il Centro Mimir in Toscana Second Life

Centro Mimir - SL - Gruppo in Lingua Italiana, Tuskany V (51, 154, 23)

Centro Mimir - SL - Gruppo in Lingua Italiana, Tuskany V (51, 154, 23)

Tuscany Case Study

http://aheadcorporation.blogspot.com/2007/04/tuscany-case-study.html


Tuscany island is one of aHead's most sophisticated real life recreation tasks. Comissioned by a private investor from Italy - Mr. Lee Pau, the Tuscany I sim is a part of a much bigger project called Mare Nostrum. Mare Nostrum will be a set of islands reflecting the mediterranean landscape of Italy. Tuscany is one of the leading sims in this project.


The whole island is landscaped and textured with maximum care, to reflect the unique ambience of the real Tuscany. Within the island one can find places resambling Tuscanian countryside, village, castle ruins, luxury historic villas, even a part of an old railroad system with a steam engine. The most important build on this island is based on the famous Villa Mangiacane hotel.


Investor: Lee Pau
Location: Tuscany I
Building team: Cezary Fish and aHead

posted by cezos at 12:34

venerdì 1 febbraio 2008

A video Triptych exploring the concept of control within insanity.

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From: lukequeler

Insanity Fused with Control

A video Triptych exploring the concept of control within insanity.
Although a contridiction counter acts the fusion of the 2 subjects a reaction still occurs.
(less)

Added: 30 November 2007

Category: People & Blogs

Tags: video art experimental insane control anime