April 2, 2024

By Courtney Wise

Greetings, MindSite News Readers. In today’s Daily, researchers say acting out your dreams at night should be followed by a visit to the doctor to rule out a possible neurological disorder. One of the nation’s largest AIDS charities is known in Los Angeles for being a bad landlord – but that hasn’t stopped it from bidding on another 17 buildings for sale in Skid Row. 

Plus, award-winning author Kao Kalia Yang discusses her new picture book, The Rock in my Throat, about her experience as a young Hmong refugee with selective mutism. “At first, no one noticed when I stopped talking at school,” she writes in this moving memoir.

Notice your partner acting out dreams? It may indicate a neurological disorder.

At first, Eileen Mills thought the frequent nighttime theatrics from her husband Wes were funny. She recalled him inviting a raccoon to eat from his hand and even organizing fellow inmates during a prison riot – all while he was fast asleep. “I used to laugh about it and call it ‘The Wes Show,’” she told the Washington Post. Not anymore. They’ve since learned that the dream enactments, also called REM sleep behavior disorder, or RBD, were a sign of a serious health issue, specifically Parkinson’s disease. It’s a tough diagnosis. Wes Mills of Taos, N.M., is a prominent contemporary artist who hasn’t been able to hold a pencil steady for more than a year. Scientists say conditions like obstructive sleep apnea and post-traumatic stress disorder are also associated with dream enactment. 

While not all dream enactments conclude with a medical diagnosis, researchers say people experiencing them should see their doctors and complete the necessary sleep studies to rule out any potential issues. As many as 80% of people with RBD develop Parkinson’s disease 15 to 20 years later, said neurologist Ronald Postuma.

Dream enactments happen when a person enters rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. That’s the sleep stage in which dreaming occurs and most people naturally enter a state of paralysis to prevent such movement while asleep. But, the Post reports, about 1% of people over age 50 lose this paralysis. Men in late middle-age are most commonly affected. “The brainstem has two linked nuclei that generate the protective paralysis of REM sleep, and when one of them, or their connecting pathway, becomes damaged, that releases muscle tone,” said Carlos Schenck, a psychiatrist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center. “People can then act out their dreams.” 

In addition to being a strong predictor of Parkinson’s disease, RBD is closely associated with other neurodegenerative disorders, including Lewy body dementia and multiple system atrophy. It is thought that misfolded alpha-synuclein, a protein, contributes to the development of RBD, Parkinson’s and other conditions. The protein works by forming into large, toxic clumps in the brain which interrupt nerve cell function and prompt Parkinson’s tremors and stiffness. Researchers hope to conduct further study on misfolded alpha-synuclein and early Parkinson’s patients to develop preventative therapies for the future. While much RBD is idiopathic, or caused for unknown reasons, rare patients develop RBD due to stroke, a tumor or certain medications.

Will a nonprofit with a slumlord reputation be allowed to take over a suite of LA buildings for homeless people?

The Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) seeks to buy and manage a slate of housing developments for homeless people in Skid Row owned by the Skid Row Housing Trust, which collapsed financially last year and is in receivership. The problem: AHF has a sketchy record operating low-income housing, as documented by the Los Angeles Times and Knock LA, a nonprofit news outlet.

A spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass told the Times the foundation is the only organization that’s written “a financially feasible offer” to date, with $53 million proposed to purchase the first 12 of 17 buildings. But state housing officials want to block the sale, citing 2023 reporting from the Times that identified AHF as a slumlord. The AHF “would not be a suitable owner and operator considering widely known and well documented shortcomings in the Foundation’s ability to provide safe and well-maintained buildings,” wrote Jennifer Seeger, a deputy director with the Department of Housing and Community Development, in a March 20th letter to the receiver.

The Foundation began its era as a landlord in 2017, the LA Times reports, asserting it could place unhoused people into homes faster and for less money than other nonprofits and agencies doing the same work. It currently owns 16 buildings with 1,500 units in the Skid Row area. If the Foundation’s bid is successful, an additional 1,200 units will be added to its portfolio. But despite annual revenue of more than $2 billion, the LA Times reports that AHF buildings are infested with vermin; tenants consistently report issues with heating, plumbing, and electricity; and crime has increased in buildings that the Foundation took over. Currently, AHF is facing 10 lawsuits in state and federal court over issues with its buildings.

Just last year, AHF settled a lawsuit filed by elderly and disabled tenants about an inoperable elevator in one of its buildings by agreeing to pay them $832,000 and repair the elevator. But already this year, the elevator was out of service for five consecutive weeks. Such incidents do little to alleviate concerns.

For its part, the Foundation said that it has spent tens of millions to repair, renovate, and increase occupancy in its buildings, benefitting almost 1,000 people who no longer live on the streets. It says the problems cited by the LA Times exist because the buildings are very old and house a challenging tenant population. Still, the Foundation may not be qualified to finalize the purchase. The city’s bidding qualifications state that purchasers must have a history of successfully offering or contracting for “supportive housing” services. “Ensuring health and safety of the tenants and providing required supportive services is essential…and failure to meet these standards puts tenants at risk,” Seeger wrote. But AHF says it won’t supply social services to tenants in most of its buildings because it’s too expensive.

The decision on whether or not to accept the proposal doesn’t rest with Los Angeles or the State of California, but rather with LA County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff. His ruling is expected in a few weeks. 

In other news…

I first heard of selective mutism when I read Maya Angelou’s acclaimed memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, back in middle school. Though our stories are different and I continued to talk following my own trauma, I felt I could relate to her action to turn inward, in some ways, caging herself. Decades later, author and Hmong refugee Kao Kalia Yang shares her own struggle with selective mutism. Her picture book for young readers, The Rock in my Throat, tells the story of how the poor treatment of her immigrant parents when they tried to communicate in English pushed her to stop speaking in school. Yang discusses the book and how she overcame the anxiety disorder in this interview with the MinnPost. 

A growing number of restaurant chains are putting a focus on employee mental health, adding mental health services and benefits for worker, Nation’s Restaurant News reports. Though the diminishing stigma around therapy and other forms of mental health care among Gen Z is behind some of the change, some execs said the pandemic is what prompted them to consider the importance of mental wellbeing. “The pandemic was the catalyst we needed to talk about this. The world had to pause, and we realized we had significant opportunities to change and make our employees’ lives better,” said Fasika Melaku, Denny’s vice president of HR/chief learning officer. “This was a problem in the industry before, but when that pause happened, it became more real.”

I once ran across a message on social media from someone whose cleaning videos began with her saying, “You’re anxious because your house is messy and dirty.” According to the mental health pros who spoke with KFYR-TV for this mental health minute, it may be the converse: Your house is dirty because you are anxious, and a consistently messy home is sometimes related to a mental condition or even Alzheimer’s. A loved one might want to bring an unusual change in house cleaning or appearance to the attention of a primary care physician (PCP), who are the first to diagnose 85% of patients with Alzheimer’s. Many PCPs say they aren’t very comfortable making the diagnosis, however. O’Malley wants to see more physicians get training that prepares them to be primary doctors for an expanding population of Alzheimer’s patients, she writes in this guest column for STAT News.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or experiencing suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and connect in English or Spanish. If you’re a veteran press 1. If you’re deaf or hard of hearing dial 711, then 988. Services are free and available 24/7.