Permission to end your life, Sir

Euthanasia is the act of deliberately ending a person’s life to relieve suffering, whilst assisted suicide is the act of encouraging or providing someone with the means to end their life. Euthanasia can be described as active, whereby the person intervenes to end another person’s life, or passive, whereby the person withholds a treatment that is necessary to maintain life. Both euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal in the UK, and are treated as either manslaughter or murder. However, as the debate regarding the legality of this issue is soon to be taken to court (again), what are the arguments for and against euthanasia?

One argument for euthanasia is patient autonomy. A patient has the right to make their own decisions, and surely should also be able to say where and when they wish to die.

Secondly, doctors should act in the best interests of the patient, a concept called beneficence. If a patient has a very poor quality of life and is experiencing physical and mental pain, it may be in the patient’s best interests for the doctor to commit euthanasia. However, it could be argued that the doctor is acting in the patient’s interests by allowing to continue living, as in some cases quality of life may see a dramatic improvement; for example, symptoms of pain may reduce, a new treatment may be ready for clinical trials, or an event in the patient’s family – perhaps a new born child – may make them decide life is worth living.

Medicine in the Media: Electroconvulsive Therapy

It is saddening to know that not only does mental health bare a social stigma, but that one of the most effective treatments for serious mental illnesses such as severe depression and bipolar disorder is often not used for its misperceptions. Films such as “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” have portrayed electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a form of punishment rather than the important treatment it is. It is true that in the past, ECT was less controlled and was definitely a treatment to be wary of; large currents were passed through the brain, and no anaesthetic was used. However, it is detrimental for the revised forms of this treatment – the treatment now uses much lower currents and the patient is asleep under general anaesthetic so feels no pain – for the media to publish deceptive material based around previous versions of ECT and pure fantasy.

 

This photo of jack Nicholson’s character in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is the second image to appear on Google images when searching for ECT. Does this really give a good, accurate impression of the therapy for vulnerable individuals who need to consider what is their best treatment?

 

I have described the treatment as “one of the most effective treatments for serious mental illnesses”. Whilst its relapse rate is quite high meaning its long-term effectiveness is debatable, ECT relieves patients of symptoms quickly. Webmd.com claims that a study of 39 sufferers of treatment-resistant depression found that 71% had a positive response to ECT within three weeks, whereas only 28% had a positive response to antidepressants within four weeks. The impacts of ECT are fast, making it a good treatment for treatment-resistant mental illnesses and serious mental illnesses where suicide risk is high.

Health Implications of Cannibalism

Prion proteins (PrP) are proteins that every individual has, located on the surfaces of cells. The instructions for the synthesis of this protein are located on chromosome 20; on the prion protein gene (PRNP). However, sometimes these proteins are folded abnormally, and can cause diseases in animals. These abnormal versions of the protein are called prions, and they cause prion diseases as they infect surrounding proteins by also causing them to fold abnormally.

Prion diseases are neurodegenerative diseases, as the prions spread across the brain and damage nerve tissues. These diseases have a long incubation period – often of around 5-20 years, but sometimes as long as 50 years – where there are no symptoms. After the incubation, symptoms begin to show and cognitive deterioration is rapid.

Prion diseases can be spread in three different ways. The first way is through genetics; if the PRNP gene develops a random mutation, then the RNA transcripted from the DNA will be faulty, and the polypeptide chain translated from the mRNA will code for an abnormal version of the protein. This gene can then be inherited by offspring of the individual, however 60% of genetic causes of prion diseases have no prior history of the disease. A small percentage of prion diseases are sporadic, and the cause is unknown.

Loftus and Palmer on Eyewitness Testimony

So the first of the two AS psychology exams is tomorrow! One section of the exam is about memory, and within the specification of this topic is the role of misleading questions on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. I have written an example 12 mark essay for the following question: “Outline and evaluate research investigating the influence of misleading information on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony”.

If you study psychology, I hope this helps. If you don’t, I hope you enjoy the read anyway!

Loftus and Palmer investigated the influence of misleading information by showing 45 American students slides of a car crash. The participants were then asked to answer several questions about the crash. The last question was the ‘critical question’ and referred to the speed of the vehicle that hit the stationary car. The question was worded with different verbs of different force, ranging from “smashed” to “contacted”. The mean speed estimate increased with the force of the language; the mean speed estimate for the “smashed” condition was 41mph but was only 32mph in the “contacted” condition. This finding suggests that language can distort memory because the question implies what the answer should be. The response-bias explanation suggests that the wording of the question has no real effect on the participants’ memory but just influences how they answer, whereas the substitution explanation suggests that the wording of the question actually changes the participants’ memories of the event.

In addition, one week after the study Loftus and Palmer asked participants to recall whether or not there was broken glass present at the scene (which there was not). All participants were asked exactly the same unbiased question. 32% of participants from the “smashed” condition reported seeing broken glass but only 14% of the “hit” condition. This finding suggests that misleading information affects the way the information is stored as there was no new misleading information to affect the recall of glass. The misleading information from the critical question had changed the actual memory.

Frightening Phobias, Part Two

As I mentioned at the end of my blog ‘Frightening Phobias’ (https://isntsciencewonderful.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/frightening-phobias/) there are two main treatments for phobias.

The first is systematic desensitisation. Firstly, the client is taught relaxation methods such as breathing exercises until a successful method is found, as many clients will find even simply discussing their phobias distressing. The client and therapist then create an anxiety hierarchy. This is a list of situations regarding the phobic stimulus that provoke anxiety, starting from the least frightening and ending with the most frightening.

 

If the phobic stimulus was a snake the anxiety hierarchy may be to look at a cartoon of a snake, then a photograph, then a snake in a sealed container, then to touch a snake. The treatment can be in vitro (where the situations are imagined) or in vivo (where the client experiences contact with the phobic stimulus)

 

The client moves throughout each stage of the hierarchy, only moving onto the next stage when they do not experience any anxiety at the current stage. They practice the relaxation methods at each stage. Systematic desensitisation works on the principle that anxiety and relaxation cannot coexist; this is called reciprocal inhibition. Effectively, a new response to the stimulus is learnt (counterconditioning), as the client learns to associate the phobic stimulus with relaxation instead of fear.

The second is flooding. In this method, the client is exposed to the phobic stimulus for an extended period of time and learns that the phobic stimulus (or conditional stimulus) can exist without the unconditioned stimulus (the thing they associated with phobic stimulus, i.e. if the phobic stimulus was the dark, the unconditioned stimulus might be being attacked). Therefore the fear (or conditioned response) is not experienced. Avoiding the phobic stimulus is not an option, and the client cannot physically maintain such high levels of anxiety for the long a period of time.

Pros and Cons of Treatments for Phobias

• Systematic desensitisation is effective; McGrath claimed that it had a 75% success rate. Furthermore, Gilroy measured the reactions towards a spider questionnaire and a live spider by a control group and by a group who had had systematic desensitisation. He found that the control group were more fearful. This experiment was completed three months and thirty-three months after the completion of systematic desensitisation.
• Systematic desensitisation can be more suitable than cognitive therapies or flooding for clients who do not have good physical health (as flooding could cause a heart attack) and clients with learning difficulties who may struggle to understand cognitive therapies.
• There are ethical concerns with both treatments as they cause distress. However, these concerns are balanced against the benefit of treating the phobia.
• Flooding is cost-effective, as it is a quicker option and rapidly decreases symptoms in response to a phobic stimulus.
• The treatments are less effective towards social phobias such as agoraphobia, where there is a cognitive element.
• Symptom substitution can occur is the phobia is only a manifestation of a deeper fear. For example, if a fear of the dark is treated, the symptoms may just be transferred to spiders. This could potentially happen if you do not know what has caused the fear.

 

Photos: snake cartoon http://clipartsign.com/upload/2016/01/27/snake-clipart-3.png

‘The Experiment’ Film Review

Warning: the following blog contains spoilers!

In psychology, I am learning about the Stanford Prison experiment. This experiment, conducted by Zimbardo et al in 1971, saw twelve volunteers be assigned to the roles of either prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was carried out to observe conformity to social roles. The six prison guards were instructed to enforce a series of rules that the prisoners had to follow. For example, the prisoners had to eat three meals a day. As expected, the prisoners rebelled on the second day of the experiment, as they disagreed with the guards and their rules. The experiment was scheduled to last two weeks. Due to an outbreak of physical violence and abuse, and three people leaving the experiment early due to psychotic breakdowns, the experiment was stopped after six days.

The newspaper advertisement for the experiment

Basic Behaviour

Today, I am writing about and evaluating the behavioural model created by psychologists of the late 19^th/early 20^th centuries (excluding social learning theory).

What is the behavioural model?

The foundation of the behavioural model is that behaviour is due to learned responses that can be altered. However, the behavioural model is based solely on empirical, objective evidence.

Pavlov investigated his theory of classical conditioning using dogs. He surgically inserted a tube into the salivary gland of a dog. Naturally, when the dog was given food he salivated, and the amount of saliva produced was recorded. Every time food was provided, a bell was rung. Eventually, the dog produced the same amount of saliva to the sound of the bell, even if no food was provided, as he had learned to associate the sound of the bell with the stimulus of food.

Placebo: Ethical or Not?

A general practitioner sits in a consulting room within his surgery. A client walks in and sits down opposite him. The GP then begins to ask specific questions about the client’s problems and symptoms as he collects a medical history of them, whilst also observing any noticeable medical signs. After concluding that the patient has a minor illness that will pass naturally within a few days, the patient demands a prescription of medicine that will cure them. What should the GP do?

One option would be to prescribe the patient a placebo, allowing them to think it is a real medicine. A placebo, according to the dictionary, is “a medicine or procedure prescribed for the psychological benefit of the patient rather than for any physiological effect”. This basically means that it has no medical effect, but could provide some psychological benefit.

A survey by Medscape asked the following question to 10,000 physicians: “Would you ever prescribe a treatment that was a placebo, simply because the patient wanted treatment?”.

Free Range Fish: Why Fish Hate Chickens

In 1999, the European Union gave owners of battery cage chicken farms a 12 year phase-out period, leading to battery cages being banned on the 1^st January 2012. Battery cages now do not exist within the UK, though there are still many illegal battery cage farms around Europe. It is unsurprising that hens in battery cages go through severe physical and psychological stress, as a cage the size of an A4 sheet of paper houses four hens. The small cages restrict the hens’ abilities to perform natural behaviours; the hens do not have enough room to stretch their wings, dustbathe, exercise, nest, or move away from other hens. Hens are also deprived of foraging. This is possibly why ‘feather-pecking’ is a problem in battery farms; this is where hens pull out each others’ feathers, leading to serious injuries or even cannibalism. However, farm owners have ‘solved’ this problem by trimming the beaks of chicks using infrared beams. This procedure is performed without anaesthetic. As hens have been bred to produce lots of eggs- up to 300 per year- often through artificial means such as selective breeding, they often suffer osteoporosis as their calcium levels are reduced. These stresses cause aggression, which in such densely populated cages pose threat to the other hens in the cage, as they cannot escape any aggressive behaviour. Lastly, the high numbers of cages in the farms make inspection difficult, and mean that sometimes deceased hens are left in cages, leading to disease.

A New Era of Transplantation?

Every twelve minutes another name is added to the American national transplant waiting list. One organ donor can save up to eight lives; however with so many hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for this surgery, it is not surprising that approximately 18 people die every day due to the lack of available organs for transplant.

Furthermore, in researching statistics for transplant surgery I have discovered that some transplants do not last. For example, a kidney transplant only lasts around 10-12 years before another kidney must be transplanted into the body. I found this fact shocking. Kidneys play such a vital role in the body: filtering the blood and reabsorbing important molecules such as water and glucose from the nephrons. Living without two functioning kidneys is exceedingly difficult, as one must always be in reach of a hospital in case a dialysis machine is needed.

However, one solution to this problem has caused controversy as its ethics are discussed.