大象传媒

ELECTRONIC MENTAL HEALTH RECORDS
Depending on where you live, it's possible that anything you say during a mental health consultation could be recorded on a computer and shared with other staff. Not every Trust is using computerised records yet and there are strict rules about who can and can鈥檛 look at them. But a new bill announced last week in the Queen鈥檚 Speech which will allow civil servants to share data about any of us, including health data, could affect this. Dr Hashim Reza, a Psychiatrist for Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, shows Claudia Hammond how RiO, the computer system being rolled out across London, works. Claudia discusses the implications of the system with Mike Kingham, a Forensic Psychiatrist at the Trevor Gibbens Unit in Kent, Rob Agnew, a Clinical Psychologist who's used RiO, and Harry Cayton, Chair of the National Information Governance Board for Health and Social Care.

SPACE THERAPY
When astronauts in orbit get stressed or depressed, there鈥檚 a psychiatrist on Earth they can call. Claudia asks NASA psychiatrist Gary Beven how he monitors the mental state of his colleagues in space. With plans for longer missions to the Moon and Mars, astronauts could spend up to two and a half years in space. Even a conversation with the team back on Earth will have a forty five minute delay.

Could a virtual therapist on a laptop help an astronaut cope with the mental pressures of being in space? Dr James Cartreine from Harvard Medical School has devised a special computer programme which aims to do just that.

INVISIBLE SMILE
In every face-to-face conversation we can't help but decode the facial expressions of the person we're talking to. So how would our ability to communicate be affected if we couldn't smile or frown at all?

In their new book, The Invisible Smile, Jonathan Cole, a consultant in Clinical Neurophysiology at Poole Hospital, and Henrietta Spalding from the charity Changing Faces, examine the rare condition Moebius Syndrome. Henrietta was born with the syndrome, which is characterised by an absence of facial expression. Claudia asks the authors what an immobile face reveals about how we all communicate.