Of those who went without seeing a doctor or other medical provider, 11% experienced a worsened medical condition, according to the poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In addition, nearly 40% said stress related to the coronavirus crisis has negatively impacted their mental health.
The pandemic has forced millions of families to weigh the risks of vulnerable grandparents getting too close to their beloved grandchildren — against the heartache of staying away.
At the start of the spring planting season, farmers across the U.S. heartland were already trying to recover from last year’s flooding amid worsening economic conditions when the pandemic struck. Farm bankruptcies and suicides continue to climb. A lack of mental health resources in rural America makes finding help more complicated.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked lawmakers to pare down their legislative wish lists and focus on the state’s coronavirus response. But state Sen. Jim Beall plans to forge ahead with his mental health care proposals, including a measure to create a state mental health parity requirement.
Under the national emergency, the government has waived a law that required patients to have an in-person visit with a physician before they could be prescribed drugs that help quell withdrawal symptoms, such as Suboxone. Now they can get those prescriptions via a phone call or videoconference with a doctor. That may give video addiction therapy a kick-start.
Martha Phillips traveled to Sierra Leone during the Ebola epidemic in 2014 to serve as a nurse. Now, she’s working on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, advising her colleagues on how to stay safe.
Twins Edna Mayes and Ethel Sylvester, 92, are relying on each other through the pandemic, in which one of the hidden dangers is to their mental health.
State officials in California have achieved some success in promoting the use of medication-assisted treatment for people with opioid addictions, but they are bumping up against familiar resistance and constraints.
People in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction have to weather a new storm of depression, anxiety and isolation during the pandemic, just as the social supports of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs move online.
To weather uncertain times, it’s important to acknowledge and grieve losses — even if they seem small in the scheme of the global pandemic, psychologists and grief experts say.
