Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) improves motor outcomes in Parkinson’s disease (PD) but may have adverse long-term effects on specific cognitive domains. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between total electrical energy (TEED) delivered by DBS and postoperative changes in verbal fluency.

Seventeen PD patients undergoing bilateral STN-DBS were assessed with the Alternate Verbal Fluency Battery (AVFB), which includes phonemic (PVF), semantic (SVF), and alternate verbal fluency (AVF) tests, before surgery (T0) and after 6 (T1) and 12 months (T2). Bilateral TEED and average TEEDM were recorded at T1 and T2. For each AVFB measurement, changes from T0 to T1 (Δ-01) and from T0 to T2 (Δ-02) were calculated.

At T1, PVF (p = 0.007) and SVF scores (p = 0.003) decreased significantly. TEED measures at T1 and T2 were unrelated to Δ-01 and Δ-02 scores, respectively. However, an inverse, marginally significant association was detected between the TEEDM and Δ-01 scores for the AVF (p = 0.041, against an αadjusted = 0.025).

In conclusion, the present reports provide preliminary evidence that TEED may not be responsible or only slightly responsible for the decline in VF performance after STN-DBS in PD.

Beekeeping is a peculiar activity able to connect people both to nature and to other people. Extant research shows how it provides beekeepers with meaning, opportunities for learning, and a sense of connection to bees as well as to the surrounding ecosystem. The relationship of care and interdependence that is established supports well-being, encourages collaboration and positive social relations.

“Beenomies” is a pilot project inspired by the union of opposites symbolically associated with bees: love and war, sweetness (honey) and bitterness (venom), the individual and multiplicity (society), regeneration and death. As CG Jung observed, honey expresses, psychologically, “the joy of life and the life urge which overcome […] the dark and the inhibiting. Where spring-like joy and expectation reign, spirit can embrace nature and nature, spirit”. Drawing on this psychological and philosophical basis, the project aimed to introduce beekeeping in a therapeutic community placed in the Alpine environment (Mondovì, Italy), to explore its rehabilitative potential and its ability to promote well-being in the field of mental health.

The project stems from the collaboration between mental health services, a local agriculture high school, and a farm involved in social agriculture. Initially, some beehives have been settled on the land surrounding the therapeutic community. Activities of beekeeping have been conducted and supervised by experienced beekeepers of the farm involved, who engaged a selected group of users hosted in the community (n=15), instructed them and worked side by side for several weeks, according to the bees’ needs and the seasonal rhytms. Once the training was completed, teaching activities have been co-conducted by beekeepers and participants, to introduce and train a group of students from the local agriculture high school. A study encompassing observational data, surveys, and semi-structured interviews was conducted to monitor and evaluate the project as it unfolded.

The performance of practical activities (i.e. beekeeping operations) proved successful in relaxing social norms around talking, lowering the emotional intensity of the encounter, allowing non-verbal communication and normalizing silence. These features supported participants with relational difficulties and encouraged the gradual development of skills in the social area. In the second part of the project, the involvement of high school students that needed to be trained allowed participants to have an active role as teachers; this contributed to the development of positive feelings, increased self-esteem and self-efficacy, eventually supporting the recovery process.

Preliminary findings suggest further collaboration between different social actors and further research to develop inclusive, effective, and community-based interventions in the field of mental health and rehabilitation.

None Declared

Mountain-therapy is a therapeutic-rehabilitative approach aimed at secondary prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of individuals with different pathologies or disabilities. Interventions in this field are based on potentially transformative dimensions of the mountain environment. Activities can include trekking, climbing, hiking, speleology, and winter sports. Benefits associated with these interventions are related to physical health as well as to rehabilitation in the domain of mental health and to the promotion of healthier lifestyles.

The pilot project named “Scan Me!” has been developed by mental health services (Centro Diurno) of Cuneo (Italy), drawing on their long-standing experience with Mountain-therapy. The aim was to improve the efficacy of mountain-based activities, introducing elements of digitalisation able to actively engage service users and the broader community.

“Scan Me!” introduces an innovative activity of mapping, communicating, and digitising the mountain environment. The intervention includes: i) participatory identification of thematic areas (e.g. history of a place; local biodiversity; ancient practices); ii) exploration of the identified areas through readings, interviews and research; iii) preparing of messages (texts, pictures, videos) that the group wishes to convey; iv) creation of QR-codes containing the messages; v) positioning of QR-codes along mountain trails during dedicated excursions; vi) setting up of online surveys to get feedback from QR-codes’ users; vii) group discussion of feedbacks and the overall experience. The project includes monitoring and evaluation tools, such as activity forms (filled in with observational data by mental health professionals), self-administered questionnaires for participants, and engagement indicators.

Findings show that the project enhances the therapeutic-rehabilitative value of mountain-based activities, such as increased self-esteem and self-efficacy that follow the completion of a route and relational skills developed within a group. The project shows encouraging results in the planning ability area (identification of themes, setting up of messages, creation and positioning of QR-codes). Being rooted in participants’ interests, the project promotes service users’ knowledge, its sharing with the group and with the general public (mountain visitors). Furthermore, the project implies group reflection, commitment to a concrete objective, and attunement with the recipients of messages (which needed to be tailored for heterogeneous audiences – e.g.: hikers, students, tourists). Lastly, the project is youth-friendly, allowing services to engage a group they aim, but often struggle, to reach.

The pilot encourages further research to understand the potential of rehabilitation tools at the intersection between nature-based and digital mental health interventions.

None Declared

Young people represent a vulnerable population, with 75% of mental disorders first emerging before 25 years of age. This pilot stems from the acknowledged need to design and test non-stigmatizing programs that are appealing to young people and suited for the protean mental health problems that they experience.

The study involves a group of youths (aged 16-25) with different forms of mental ill-health in a locally and culturally meaningful activity, namely hand-harvesting grape in the renowned area of Langhe (Italy). The aim is to investigate viticultural practices as possibly effective in supporting recovery by promoting social interaction and fostering a sense of belonging in the broader process of winemaking.

The project is multidisciplinary in its design and implementation, involving psychiatrists, psychologists, rehabilitation specialists and sociologists. Research methods include clinical assessment, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews with the participants.

During the harvest season, a stable group of participants has been involved in a one-to-one relationship with professional vine growers. This relational geometry was built around the performance of a practical task: that of filling in a box with manually harvested grape and moving it along the rows of vines. Within each dyad, which represents the most fragile and intimate of all social forms, practical knowledge has been conveyed from the experienced worker to the youth. Most importantly, the repeated encounters provided an opportunity for human interaction and exchange that went beyond the activity being performed, involving the gradual disclosure of self, the ability to listen, connect and empathize with personal stories from diverse backgrounds. Participants’ narratives collected during and after the pilot describe the vineyard as a psychic more than a physical place – a landscape of the mind, structured around the emotional and sensorial contents of the experience. The study’s core finding emerging from fieldwork and youths’ accounts is the beneficial effects of the intervention on transdiagnostic factors such as social anxiety symptoms, low self-efficacy and poor social skills.

The pilot provides suggestions to orient meaningful and non-stigmatising programs for vulnerable young people, hosted in landscapes that can become therapeutic not by virtue of their aesthetic features, but because of the access they provide to social (i.e. opportunities for new relationships), material (occasions to create and share something tangible) and affective (promotion of positive emotions, containment of loneliness and feelings of inadequacy) resources.

None Declared

Alcohol consumption is part of the global youth culture and represents a dimension of young people’s social identity. Even if at-risk drinking in the young population is lower in Italy compared to other countries, the increasing complexity and changes in global values may influence risky behaviours, which therefore require attention and preventive strategies.

The intervention followed a pilot named The Vineyard Project, which engaged a group of young mental health service users in local practices of hand-harvesting grape. The initiative was hosted in the wine-producing area of Langhe (Italy), which shows lower rates of at-risk drinking also due to the protective role played by the cultural dimension of winemaking craft. The pilot inspired a peer led-intervention in a local high school, acknowledging the crucial role that educational settings play in the lives of young people and the relevance of peer influence on adolescents’ behaviours.

Semi-structured interviews with young people participating in the Vineyard Project have been conducted, audio-recorded and shared with high school students (n=80) to become the object of dedicated workshops. Interviews explored participants’ experience in the vineyard, the relationship they developed with the vines and with professional vine growers, their role in the winemaking process, and the emotional and sensorial contents of their immersion in the viticultural landscape.

The peer-led intervention showed promising results in producing benefits beyond the group of young people directly involved in the vineyard activities. By narrating their experiences through the interviews, participants acted as cultural mediators with the students who subsequently listened to their stories. Their narratives represent unusual accounts of the world of wine and its production, drawing on the perspective of non-expert, young people that are not familiar with the viticultural landscape. The embodied knowledge they could learn from professional vine growers, concerning the harvest as well as other activities of care for the vines, contribute to portray wine as a cultural product, which is the result of traditions handed down from generation to generation, hard work, competent interventions on the vines and the other living beings of the vineyard. This unusual perspective on wine was perceived as particularly surprising for students who lived in the area, who became so acquainted with the viticultural landscape and the discourses around its products to the point of taking it for granted in a non-reflexive attitude.

Findings suggest that peer-led interventions concerning wine and other drinking products, narrated in their cultural dimension (e.g. their story, identity, local traditions, practices and the tacit knowledge implied in their production), may encourage a limited and competent consumption among young people.

None Declared

Employment as a critical domain of functioning is an important target of recovery-oriented programs for people with psychiatric disabilities. Evidence shows that persons participating in competitive employment which meets their vocational needs are more likely than people in sheltered work programs to feel included in their communities, to report satisfaction with work and a high quality of life.

The Vineyard Project is a program engaging young people with different forms of mental ill-health in local practices of hand-harvesting grape. The program stems from a pilot carried out in September 2022 with a group of people aged 16-25, who worked with professional vine growers in the renowned area of Langhe (Italy). Aims were manifold: i) for the group: involvement in a culturally meaningful activity that is part of the transformative process of winemaking, as a way to overcome social anxiety symptoms and poor self-efficacy; ii) for the community: to attempt overcoming structural stigma that may undermine an employer’s willingness to hire a person with a psychiatric diagnosis; iii) to develop an evidence-based rehabilitation program aimed at competitive employment.

To foster community integration, the program was hosted in a real-world setting. The program is multidisciplinary, involving psychiatrists, psychologists, rehabilitation specialists and sociologists. Clinical assessment and semi-structured interviews with participants are performed.

Preliminary research findings provide evidence to develop the program according to the following principles: on-site practical training provided in a 1:1 relationship with professional workers (i.e. natural supports), supplemented by extra educational resources available in the community (e.g. local School of Enology); covering of all the vineyard activities throughout the year (pruning, binding, harvesting…); growth of expertise on an individual as well as on a group level, to foster the building of a cohesive team that can compete on the labour market and that provides participants with a sense of membership and identity; opportunity for new participants to join the team on an annual basis, acknowledging their peers as experts who can in turn pass on their knowledge; continual assessment of the ever-changing needs of participants and qualitative inquiry of their perspective, to provide time-unlimited support and ongoing adjustment of the program.

The Vineyard Project aims to eventually establish a rehabilitation tool, resulting from the combination of multi-disciplinary approaches, that can be tested and applied to work settings different from the viticultural environment where it had its origin.

None Declared

Adolescents represent a vulnerable population, with a high prevalence of mental illness and increased levels of subsyndromal psychological distress. Educational settings are central to the lives of young people, and their potentiality to promote mental health is increasingly recognised. The acknowledged role of peer influence on adolescent behaviours indicates peer-led interventions as a promising avenue of youth mental health support.

The intervention stems from a pilot called The Vineyard Project, which engaged a group of young people with different forms of mental ill-health in local practices of hand-harvesting grape. The pilot was hosted in the region of Langhe (Italy) and was meant to address social anxiety symptoms and poor self-efficacy through the involvement in a culturally meaningful activity within the transformative process of winemaking. The pilot formed the basis of a peer led-intervention in a local Arts high school, aimed to improve mental health knowledge, reduce stigmatising attitudes and promote help-seeking through the mediated connection between students (n = 80) and young people who participated in the Vineyard Project.

Semi-structured interviews with young people participating in the pilot have been conducted and audio-recorded. Interviews explored their experience in the vineyard and its relation with their personal story and the mental health challenges they have been facing. Following a preparatory work with high school teachers, recordings have been anonymized and shared with students to become the object of an art-based workshop.

The practical purpose of the workshop with Arts students was to draw wine labels inspired by their peers’ narratives as they were recorded during interviews. This activity had a double objective: i) to stimulate the ability to listen and foster connection with the experiences shared by young people participating in the vineyard activities; ii) to auction wine bottles labelled by the students to provide financial support for new projects for young people. Feedbacks gathered with students and members of the education community showed that stories shared by participants were considered relatable, experience-near and close to the difficulties that students were familiar with. Consistently with scientific literature on peer support in youth mental health, the intervention showed beneficial effects on the interviewees as well: the opportunity to share their story, making it available to other adolescents who could learn from it and take the project further, stimulated feelings of self-acceptance, personal growth and sense of value.

Emerging results from the Vineyard Project suggest that a dialogue between peers, undertook in a non-medicalised framework, can foster connection and empathy, breaking down taboos about mental health, reducing self-stigma and eventually increasing help-seeking intentions.

None Declared