Even though pediatric emergency department visits decreased greatly overall during the COVID-19 pandemic, a newly published study led out of the University of Calgary shows there was also a sharp increase in emergency department visits for attempted suicide and suicide ideation among children and adolescents in that same period of social isolation. Dr. Sheri Madigan, a clinical psychologist in the […]
For frontline healthcare workers, the mental health impact from the pandemic is extending beyond career burnout. Much of the attention on the mental toll suffered by frontline workers has focused on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). New research from a collaboration between Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh reveals that even those who are not formally diagnosed as suffering from […]
Six minutes of high-intensity exercise could extend the lifespan of a healthy brain and delay the onset of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. New research published in The Journal of Physiology shows that a short but intense bout of cycling increases the production of a specialised protein that is essential for brain formation, learning and memory, and could […]
There is new evidence that a 50-year-old blood pressure drug could find new purpose as a treatment to mitigate the often life-altering effects of increasingly prevalent PTSD, scientists say. Clonidine is commonly used as a high blood pressure medication and for ADHD. It’s also already been studied in PTSD because clonidine works on adrenergic receptors in the brain, likely best known […]
Switching the painkiller codeine to a prescription-only medicine in 2018 led to a 37 per cent overall drop in its consumption across Australia, according to new findings from wastewater sampling published in the journal Addiction. The samples, taken from 49 wastewater treatment plants, which cover catchment areas for 10.6 million Australians, show the dramatic effect of withdrawing the country’s most misused […]
The artificial intelligence algorithms behind the chatbot program ChatGPT — which has drawn attention for its ability to generate humanlike written responses to some of the most creative queries — might one day be able to help doctors detect Alzheimer’s Disease in its early stages. Research from Drexel University’s School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems recently demonstrated that […]
Compared to other experimental therapies, treatment with the ADHD medication lisdexamfetamine resulted in the lowest risk of hospitalization and death among people with amphetamine addiction, researchers reported on Nov. 16, 2022 in JAMA Psychiatry. ”Our results suggest that lisdexamfetamine is associated with the best outcomes, and encourage the conduction of randomized controlled trials to explore this further,” said investigator Jari […]
Despite the continuing growth of benzodiazepine (BZD)-related overdoses, BZD prescription rates have held constant. Much is unknown about how a doctor’s own beliefs about BZD use and potential harm to patients might influence their willingness to prescribe the drug. Using a Medicare database, researchers identified primary care providers who had prescribed a BZD in 2017 and surveyed a random sample […]
In the first nationally representative study of cognitive impairment prevalence in more than 20 years, Columbia University researchers have found almost 10% of U.S. adults ages 65 and older have dementia, while another 22% have mild cognitive impairment. People with dementia and mild cognitive impairment are more likely to be older, have lower levels of education, and to be racialized […]
Researchers report a link between use of glitazones to treat type 2 diabetes and a 22% reduced risk of dementia. The findings appeared on Oct 11, 2022 in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care. “These findings may help inform medication selection for [older] patients with [type 2 diabetes] at high risk of dementia,” the authors said. As background, the authors noted […]
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