Psychiatry / Psychology
Training program for depressed moms helps babies
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Infants of depressed mothers show “quite dramatic” increases in positive responses after their mothers complete a 5-week course designed to help them better interpret and respond to infant behavior, even though the course had no apparent effect on depression.
“It was a significant difference and gave us a pretty strong message that it was having a pretty powerful effect,” Dr. Robert Short of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, one of the study’s authors, told Reuters Health.
Cannabis: An apology
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Record numbers of teenagers are requiring drug treatment as a result of smoking skunk, the highly potent cannabis strain that is 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago.
More than 22,000 people were treated last year for cannabis addiction - and almost half of those affected were under 18. With doctors and drugs experts warning that skunk can be as damaging as cocaine and heroin, leading to mental health problems and psychosis for thousands of teenagers, The Independent on Sunday has today reversed its landmark campaign for cannabis use to be decriminalised.
Spirituality increases as alcoholics recover
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For decades, recovering alcoholics and those who treat them have incorporated spirituality into the recovery process — whether or not it’s religious in nature. But few research studies have documented if and how spirituality changes during recovery, nor how those changes might influence a person’s chance of succeeding in the quest for sobriety.
Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Addiction Research Center sheds light on this phenomenon. In the March issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, they show that many measures of spirituality tend to increase during alcohol recovery. They also demonstrate that those who experience increases in day-to-day spiritual experiences and their sense of purpose in life are most likely to be free of heavy drinking episodes six months later.
Study challenges idea that schizophrenia is distinct in developing and developed regions
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Research by the World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested that the course and symptomatic expression of schizophrenia is relatively more benign in developing societies. However, a new study from Current Anthropology challenges this assumption, comparing biological and cultural indicators of schizophrenia in urban, Western societies with study data from the island of Palau, which has one of the highest rates of schizophrenia diagnosis in the world today.
“A 1% average worldwide population prevalence of schizophrenia is routinely interpreted in the medical literature as implying a uniform distribution,” write Roger J. Sullivan (California State University, Sacramento), John S. Allen (University of Southern California), and Karen L. Nero (University of Canterbury, New Zealand). “In this sense, the 1% figure is a myth that conceals considerable variability in actual prevalence between settings.”
Many Parents Want Distance Between Own Kids and Those With Mental Illness
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New research suggests that Americans are more likely to socially reject children with mental illness than they are those with physical illnesses such as asthma.
“Many respondents did not want their children to become friends with other kids identified as having mental illnesses or have them come over to spend an evening socializing,” said Jack Martin, Ph.D., lead study author.
Pain complicates depression treatment in elderly
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By interfering with normal activities, chronic pain can impede recovery from depression in older adults, according to findings reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Dr. Shahrzad Mavandadi, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues examined the effects of pain on the response to depression treatment in 524 men, 60 years of age or older, who were seen at a VA medical center.
Strep linked to movement disorder in children
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Group A streptococcal infection appears to be associated with changes in behavior and the development of a movement disorder in elementary school children, according to a report in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.
There is renewed interest in the relationship between strep infections and behavioral and movement disorders, the authors explain, but the extent of strep’s role in these disorders has not been defined. Symptoms that characterized the movement disorder observed in these children include involuntary, rapid, jerking movements that can be subtle or pronounced, also referred to as chorea.
Memory loss from shock therapy tied to technique
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Memory loss due to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), commonly known as electroshock therapy, may to a large extent be associated with how the treatment is administered, according to a study of patients referred to one of seven hospitals in the New York metropolitan area for ECT.
Despite ongoing controversy, there has never been a large-scale study of the cognitive effects of ECT, Dr. Harold A. Sackeim of New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, and colleagues point out in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
Chronic distress linked to higher dementia risk
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Older adults who are prone to emotional distress may have an increased risk of developing dementia, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that older men and women with chronic distress were more likely than their peers with low distress levels to develop dementia before they died. However, distress was not related to the plaques, tangles and other brain changes that mark Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
Mental health bill moves forward in Congress
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A bill that would require health insurers to cover more of the costs of treating mental health conditions moved forward in Congress on Wednesday with wide backing from employers and insurers.
The Mental Health Parity Act of 2007 cleared the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and now goes to the full Senate for a vote.
Fetal cocaine exposure tied to behavior problems
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Children exposed to cocaine in the womb exhibit behavior problems up to at least 7 years of age, according to a long-term study that enrolled 1,388 children between 1993 and 1995 at four centers.
Children exposed to cocaine in the womb were matched with a group of nonexposed children. At ages 3, 5, and 7 years, a total of 1,056 children were assessed for behavior problems using the Child Behavior Checklist.
Vasectomy may put men at risk for type of dementia
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Northwestern University researchers have discovered men with an unusual form of dementia have a higher rate of vasectomy than men the same age who are cognitively normal.
The dementia is Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), a neurological disease in which people have trouble recalling and understanding words. In PPA, people lose the ability to express themselves and understand speech. It differs from typical Alzheimer’s disease in which a person’s memory becomes impaired.
A simple test permits to distinguish between bipolar disorder and depression
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Patients with bipolar disorder experience manic or hypomanic episodes (euphoria) and depression. Type II bipolar disorder (hypomanic) patients are especially difficult to diagnose since their manic episodes are not very marked and they are usually diagnosed as depression patients. Choosing an incorrect treatment can be counterproductive. A study led by IDIBAPS, with the participation of PSYNCRO and 10 more hospital centres and the support of GSK, demonstrates how the HCL-32 test identifies bipolar depression in a simple way and with success above 80%. This work has been done with the Spanish version of this test.
Type II bipolar disorder is an underdiagnosed disease which can be easily confused with depression. Contrarily to what happens in type I bipolar disorder, depressive symptoms and, above all, manic symptoms alternated in this form of the disease are not evident and difficult to identify. In fact, patients suffering from it usually go to the doctor because they are depressed, without thinking that they have also had slight manic episodes (euphoria and other cognition disorders). Medical centre lack tools to identify successfully this pathology, which can take 8-10 years to be correctly diagnosed. Furthermore, antidepressant treatment can be counterproductive in patients with type II bipolar disorder. Dr. Eduard Vieta, of the group Biological Basis of the Psychic Disorder and Nuclear Psychiatry of the Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), has coordinated a study in order to validate the Spanish version of the test Hypomania symptom check list (HCL-32), which is being developed in an ample international collaboration.
Down’s syndrome test eliminates miscarriage risk
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A new non-invasive test that examines fetal DNA can pick up genetic abnormalities such as Down’s syndrome and, unlike more intrusive tests that may raise the risk of miscarriage, the new diagnostic tool developed by the US company Ravgen poses no threat to the mother or fetus.
The test uses fetal DNA extracted from blood samples taken from the mother to screen for chromosomal abnormalities, researchers explained. In a preliminary study of 60 pregnant women reported online by The Lancet medical journal the test produced promising results.
Newer Class of Antidepressants Similar in Effectiveness, Side Effects Differ
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Today’s most commonly prescribed antidepressants are similar in effectiveness to each other but differ when it comes to possible side effects, according to an analysis released today by HHS’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The findings, based on a review of nearly 300 published studies of second-generation antidepressants, show that about six in 10 adult patients get some relief from the drugs. About six in 10 also experience at least one side effect, ranging from nausea to sexual dysfunction.
Patients who don’t respond to one of the drugs often try another medication within the same class. About one in four of those patients recover, according to the review. Overall, current evidence on the drugs is insufficient for clinicians to predict which medications will work best for individual patients.
