Posted by yxibow on December 13, 2008, at 0:25:26
In reply to Re: 'mental illness, in brain scans' » rjlockhart04-08, posted by Phillipa on December 13, 2008, at 0:06:34
> The Amen Clinic is rather famous. He is using special scans not MRI's etc. Love Phillipa
I'd put skeptical on famous -- infamous, the "Amen Clinic", its fairly "unproven science"
http://www.quackwatch.org/06ResearchProjects/amen.html
At least one opinion anyhow. And insurance doesn't cover SPECT for mental illness typically. Its an investigational tool at the moment.
Its sort of akin to those "full body scan" clinics. Yes, I suppose if you did a full MRI you might find something but then again I'm sure there's a more than equal chance that you'll find some benign condition that most people have.
MRIs for that amount of data and even the level of detail that we can get today, which is the best, but not what future technologies probably could, have to run 24/7....
(most MRIs in hospital or outpatient clinics do also, for routine procedures, considering the unit costs in the single to double digit million dollars in the first place).
Annual (or more frequent depending on your doctor's concern) physicals are a peer proven way of keeping more people from using the ER as a single source of medical contact. That's different.
-- Jay
poster:yxibow
thread:868400
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20081204/msgs/868415.html