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Phone App Might Predict Manic Episodes In Bipolar Disorder

There are smartphone apps for monitoring your diet, your drugs, even your heart. And now a Michigan psychiatrist is developing an app he hopes doctors will someday use to predict when a manic episode is imminent in patients with bipolar disorder.

People with the disorder alternate between crushing depression and wild manic episodes that come with the dangerous mix of uncontrollable energy and impaired judgment.

There are drugs that can prevent these episodes and allow people with bipolar disorder to live normal lives, according to Dr. Melvin McInnis, a psychiatrist at the University of Michigan Medical Center. But relapses are common.

"We want to be able to detect that well in advance," McInnis says. "The importance of detecting that well in advance is that they reach a point where their insight is compromised, so they don’t feel themselves that anything is wrong."

Early detection would give doctors a chance to adjust a patient’s medications and stave off full-blown manic episodes.

McInnis says researchers have known for some time that when people are experiencing a manic or depressive episode, their speech patterns change. Depressed patients tend to speak slowly, with long pauses, whereas people with a full-blown manic attack tend to speak extremely rapidly, jumping from topic to topic.

"It occurred to me a number of years ago that monitoring speech patterns would be a really powerful way to devise some kind of an approach to have the ability to predict when an episode is imminent," says McInnis.

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The freak weather struck at 5:10 pm (1240 GMT), sending residents dashing for cover as debris swept across streets and snapped trees. State media reported 110 kilometre (70-mile) per hour winds.

Forecasters on state television initially warned Tehranis to stay indoors, shortly before the ISNA news agency said the fatalities were caused by falling trees.

Amin Sabernia, Iran’s chief emergency official, announced the deaths and said at least 27 people were injured, 10 of them in a road accident when the gloom suddenly descended.

State television later reported that two people injured in the storm were in critical condition.

The word of the day is:

Invective [in-vek-tiv] (n.): an angry verbal attack

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DOING THE LINDY

One of the most popular British English visuals:

Baccate ~adj.

US History Review: Marbury v Madison Explained

A super fun exploration of one of the nation’s most important judicial decisions, Marbury vs Madison. In this video we explore the roots of Judicial Review, the facts of the case and the judicial rational. Perfect for cramming high schoolers and collegeers, life long learners and the cray cray on the internets.

The word of the day is:

Inure [in-yoor, ih-noor] (v.): to cause someone or something to become accustomed to a situation

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