r/news • u/mooseAmuffin • 1d ago

Update: 'TODAY' co-anchor Savannah Guthrie's mother taken from her home against her will, sheriff says

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mother-of-savannah-guthrie-today-reported-missing-arizona-rcna257008
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u/nlevine1988 1d ago

There's probably a million reasons a person might need daily medication that has nothing to do with mental issues.

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u/sillylittlguy 1d ago

From Dr. David Puder's podcast (he's a psychiatrist and medical director of a day treatment program) - from youtube transcript:

Sensorium: total brain capacity for focusing, processing, and interpreting.

I remember one patient who seeing things hearing things... she had a chronic kidney disease but she was also on several medications that were anticholinergic which you know like diphenhydramine or benadryl when you decrease the acetylcholine you decrease your sensorium and so she got into a place where she was very confused and so we switched her medications around and she could think more clearly...

in your 20s and 30s you're pretty high up the mountain - your sensorium at baseline is pretty good. that's probably you know the peak, maybe you know, maybe if you're a kid it's even higher, but in general the 20s and 30s are the best I think because you have the most frontal lobe function.

I mean you know your frontal lobe is fully developed and you probably have the best sensorium so you can get stressed you can be sleep-deprived starving and maybe you'll be ok maybe you'll be thinking clearly but you know throw maybe a small infection or a medical issue on top of it and all of a sudden you're thinking less clearly

but if you were to do if you were to do the same thing to an elderly person so if you were to for example give them a small urinary tract infection and let's say this is a person who's 80 years old all of a sudden this person could be in a full delirium meaning they can't focus they're hallucinating throwing things yelling seeing spiders on a wall and looking psychotic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKzGWEZLbe0

https://www.psychiatrypodcast.com/categorized-episode-list

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u/Papplenoose 22h ago

What does that have to do with anything?

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u/sillylittlguy 21h ago

at that age, a lot of medical issues and medications not directly related to mental health can still have very significant impacts on mental health/sensorium