Hasta La Gadget!

Anyone can be dealing with a mental health condition ― even the girl next door.

Lili Reinhart, who plays love interest Betty Cooper in “Riverdale,” The CW series that reimagines the classic Archie comics, reiterated this exact fact recently. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Reinhart opened up about her experience with depression and anxiety. And her message about living with the conditions and going through treatment deserves all the praise-hand emojis.

“There’s no pattern necessarily. It can come and go in waves, which makes it a little more difficult because you’re not really sure when one point ends and another point begins,” Reinhart told Cosmopolitan. “It can be based off a certain situation, or it can be seasonal or it can have no reason at all, because it doesn’t need a reason. It’s a chemical in [my] brain that I have to take medication for, so I don’t constantly feel doom and gloom and sadness.”

Reinhart explained she felt compelled to address her mental health in order to normalize the discussion around anxiety and depression.

“[I’m speaking out about it because] I felt like the celebrities and people who did talk about it were commended for being so brave. It’s not something that you need to praise anyone for,” she said. “It should be commonplace. It should be something that we talk about in school. The fact that it isn’t makes people ashamed of it.”

The shame Reinhart describes is in large part due to the stigma around mental illness. Nearly one in five American adults will experience a mental health disorder this year, but just 25 percent of people living with a mental illness feel that others understand or care about their condition. 

Reinhart said she felt this prejudice deeply during her time in school.

“For teenage kids, they feel a pressure to sweep things under the rug because they feel like they’re not important enough to have problems. I dealt with that,” explained. “People were like, ‘You have no reason to be upset. Your feelings are illogical.’ My message is that that’s not true. You don’t have to have a reason. Your feelings are validated by the fact that you’re feeling them.”

We’ll salute that sentiment.

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Actor and martial arts star Donnie Yen is done with United Airlines.

The Chinese action star took to social media to share his reaction after his 9-year-old son asked about the incident surrounding passenger David Dao, who was violently dragged off the airline’s plane. 

Asking social media users how the “Rogue One” actor should explain the airline’s “proudly assaulting a 69-year-old man” to the boy, Yen made it clear that the airline would no longer receive his business. 

“My nine-year-old son saw this news on TV and was horrified, ‘Baba, what happened?’” Yen wrote in the post before noting that Dao was “discriminated” against. “No one should be treated this way. … United was never my choice of airline, now they are black listed.”

Yen is one of countless Asians who have expressed their outrage towards the airline after the graphic footage went viral. Dao’s legal team has said that they do not believe race was a factor in his removal from the plane. Regardless, many including Yen think that discrimination played a role in the matt. 

With fellow passengers previously quoted as saying Dao is either Chinese and Vietnamese, social media lit up with messages from Asians on various foreign social media platforms condemning the airline’s actions and encouraging others to stand up to racism. And several, like Yen, vowed they’d boycott the airline in the future, even cutting up their United membership cards. 

Demetrio said Thursday that as a result of the incident, Dao suffered a broken nose, lost two front teeth and received a concussion. A lawsuit from the passenger is “likely.” 

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(Reuters Health) – Different types of problems are most likely to afflict people at different times of life, so common risk factors for depression change over the years, too, Dutch researchers say.

But when a risk factor is uncommon among peers – like widowhood or poor health in youth – it can have an outsized effect on depression risk, the study team reports in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

“A wide range of risk factors for depression is relevant across the entire life span,” said lead author Roxanne Schaakxs of VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.

“However, some risk factors expected to be strongly related to depression in certain ages, may actually affect other age groups to a larger extent,” Schaakxs added by email.

Depression is a complex condition and many experts believe that in addition to innate genetic and personality factors, risks like stressful life events, health issues and money problems can contribute to its development, the study team notes.

To see which depression risk factors affect people at various stages of life, and how much of an effect each factor has, the study team analyzed data on more than 2,000 adults participating in two long-term studies of depression and anxiety. Subjects in one study were aged 18 to 65 when they began participating, while participants in the other study were aged 60 to 93 when it started.

At baseline, a total of 1,431 people had major depressive disorder and 784 people had no symptoms or history of the condition.

The research team assessed 19 different risk factors for depression in different age groups, comparing people who had never been depressed with people who were currently depressed.

Most of the risk factors did increase people’s likelihood of being depressed at any age, including low education, recent negative life events, personality traits, reduced social functioning, an unhealthy lifestyle and poor health.

However, five of the risk factors were more strongly related to depression in certain age groups.

For people aged 18 to 39, health factors like overweight or obesity, pain, childhood abuse and chronic disease were strongly associated with depression. For those over 60, low income was a greater risk for depression than in other age groups.

People with risk factors that were “unexpected” based on their age also had a higher depression risk than those in other age groups where the same risk factor was more common, researchers found.

For example, chronic illness was more strongly linked to depression in younger people than older people while low income carried higher depression risk in older people though it was more common among younger people.

When young people are struggling with circumstances like illness or loneliness, it may come as a surprise and they may not have the skills to cope, said Patricia Arean, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.

She stressed the importance of screening young people with chronic illnesses for depression. “Fortunately, prevention interventions for depression are also good for health care: get good sleep, rest, exercise regularly, reach out to friends and family,” said Arean, who was not involved in the current study.

“When an unexpected life event happens, pay close attention to your reaction to it,” Arean said by email. “If you find that you are struggling with your mood, energy, interest in things, concentration for more than two weeks, Do Not Ignore those symptoms. Go see your doctor and get help.”

“General practitioners and therapists should not overlook risk factors for depression by assuming the risk factor is less relevant at a certain age,” Schaakxs advised.

SOURCE: bit.ly/2ovflMy The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, online April 7, 2017.

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We’ve got great news if you’re in love with your phone ― the technological singularity will happen sometime in the next thirty years. Futurist Ray Kurzweil believes that by 2029 computers will achieve human levels of intelligence. Which is no surprise considering computers can already do things greater than humans in certain areas.

Kurzweil has a proven track record in predicting the future. It makes sense that humans will soon merge with technology but other thought leaders like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking worry that merging with technology could threaten humanity.

The question of whether or not humanity would be improved or ruined by self aware technology is an age old one. It’s the subject of many feature films, think piece articles, and countless hours of research at tech companies.

The reality of the singularity will likely be rather gradual. Already we’re seeing technology slowly merge with daily human processes with wearable tech that tracks fitness and brain function. So if you’re envisioning singularity as an oncoming wave of change you might be disappointed. It’s more likely to be a gradual tide change.

Either way, it’ll be pretty dope to have Apple pay in your finger though, right?

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<span class="articleLocation”>Last year, the Henry County Health Center in Iowa started providing patients with a cost estimate along with pre-surgery medical advice.

The 25-bed rural hospital in the southwest corner of the state implemented the protocol because of mounting unpaid bills from insured patients, a group that had previously not raised red flags.

Henry County is one of hundreds of U.S. hospitals trying to cope with an unexpected consequence of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, known as Obamacare: millions more Americans have health insurance, but it requires them to spend thousands of dollars before their insurer kicks in a dime.

Since U.S. hospitals do not want to end up footing the bill, they are now experimenting with pre-payment strategies for patients, with a growing number requiring payment before scheduled care and offering no interest loans, according to interviews with more than two dozen hospitals, doctors, patients, lenders and healthcare experts.

“Most patients are appreciative that we’re telling them up front,” said David Muhs, chief financial officer for the Henry County hospital, which provides a discount for early payment. The discussion leads some patients to skip care, others to delay it or use a no interest loans available through the hospital, he said.

The ACA extended insurance to 20 million Americans, which initially helped hospitals begin to shrink debt from uninsured patients who could not pay their medical bills. But more and more, people in Obamacare plans or in employer-based health plans are choosing insurance that features low monthly payments. The trade-off is high out of pocket costs when they need care. (For a graphic, click tmsnrt.rs/2oCzePS)

If President Donald Trump dismantles Obamacare as promised, these plans won’t disappear. Republicans also believe high-deductible plans curb spending, and Americans faced with medical costs that rise faster than inflation and wages will look for premiums they can afford.

The trend is expected to accelerate this year because unpaid bills are creating massive bad debt for even the most prestigious medical centers. U.S. hospitals had nearly $36 billion in uncompensated care costs in 2015, according to the industry’s largest trade group, a figure that is largely made up of unpaid patient bills.

The largest publicly-traded hospital chain, HCA Holdings Inc, reported in the fourth quarter of 2016 that its ratio of bad debt to gross revenues of more than $11 billion was 7.5 percent.

One of the first to test this new payment strategy was Novant Health, headquartered in North Carolina with 14 medical centers and hundreds of outpatient and physician facilities. It saw patient debt increase when more local employers started adopting high deductible plans, including one that made its executives pay $10,000 in out-of-pocket expenses.

“To remain financially stable, we had to do something,” said April York, senior director of patient finance at Novant, whose patient default rate dropped to 12 percent from 32 percent after it started offering no interest loans through ClearBalance.

“Patients needed longer to pay. They needed a variety of options,” she said.

IMPACT ON PATIENTS

These prepayment strategies are being rolled out by hospitals across the country because the financial equation has changed so much for patients – even the insured ones.

Almost half of Americans – 45 percent – polled by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they would have difficulty paying an unexpected $500 medical bill. The average deductible this year for the least expensive of the widely used Obamacare health plans is $6,000 for an individual – an 18 percent spike since 2014 – and more than double that for a family, according to government data.

Jessica Curtis, a senior advisor at Community Catalyst, a consumer advocacy group in Boston, said the impact on patients stretches beyond personal finance.

“They delay procedures, they don’t follow advice on prescription drugs, and when they see care, they usually are for more expensive procedures because they’ve waited,” she said

Brian Sanderson, managing principal of Crowe Horwath’s healthcare services group, said communicating with patients and providing longer repayment options is a good strategy since hospital margins have shrunk, thanks to growing unpaid medical bills from consumers.

“A well informed patient is more likely to meet their obligations,” he said. “It’s just good patient relations and it helps to minimize bad debt.”

Hospitals are doing what they can to retain patients while helping them pay medical bills that could run thousands of dollars. Many are expanding charity eligibility, and hiring companies like ClearBalance, AccessOne and Commerce Bank to provide loans to patients no matter what their credit. Most carry no interest rate for the patient, and could be extended far longer than the few months that hospitals once required before sending a bill to collections.

“People are more likely to pay a bank than a hospital,” said Mark Huebner, director of Health Services Financing at Commerce Bank, which offers its line of credit at more than 200 hospitals.

“People are aware that banks will come after them. Banks do collect on debt, and hospitals generally have been more relaxed,” he said.

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina had seen its bad debt creep up in recent years as more patients saw out of pocket expenses soar, with some deductibles reaching $15,000.

“We’ve seen that many patients are unaware of the increases in their deductibles,” said CFO Chad Eckes. Wake Forest now asks for payment before non-emergency services are provided but also offers zero interest, longer repayment options.

“It’s a challenging position,” he said. “It’s a discussion no one wants to be in, and none of us enjoy.”

(Editing by Caroline Humer and Edward Tobin)

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