Healio (6/9, Herpen) reports, “Specific phenotypes of autism spectrum disorder [ASD], including issues with visual processing, found in older siblings are likely predictors of ASD in younger siblings,” researchers concluded in a study involving magnetic resonance imaging and including “384 pairs of siblings, the oldest of which had been diagnosed with ASD.” The findings were published online May 26 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Phenotypic indicators predict ASD in siblings “Robert Herpen, MA, Healio, June 9, 2022

According to HealthDay (6/9, Preidt), herpes zoster, commonly known as shingles, appears not to be tied to an increased risk of dementia. Investigators arrived at this conclusion after they “analyzed data from more than 247,000 people in Denmark who visited a hospital or were prescribed antiviral medication for shingles over the course of 20 years, and 1.2 million age- and sex-matched people without the illness.” After adjustment for confounding factors, the study revealed that “people with shingles actually had a 7% lower risk of dementia than people who did not have shingles.” The findings were published online in the journal Neurology.

Related Links:

— “Shingles Won’t Raise Risk for Dementia: Study “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, June 9, 2022

mHealth Intelligence (6/9, Melchionna) reports “telehealth utilization rates correspond with how clinicians perceive the effectiveness level, ease of use, and quality of virtual care services” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to survey study findings published in JAMA Network Open. The survey including “866 participants, who worked in clinics that specialized in either mental health (MH), primary care (PC), or specialty care (SC),” found “that MH respondents were more likely than their PC and SC counterparts to rate video care as having the highest quality, and they preferred this modality to the phone.”

Related Links:

— “Clinician Perception of Quality Linked to Telehealth Modality Use Rates “Mark Melchionna, mHealth Intelligence, June 9, 2022

Medscape (6/8, Burton, Subscription Publication) reports, “Social isolation is associated with a significantly increased risk of dementia in older people,” investigators concluded after examining “data from the UK Biobank from 462,619 people from across the” UK. The study revealed that “individuals who reported feeling socially isolated had worse cognitive function at baseline than those who did not report social isolation and were 26% more likely to have dementia at follow-up.” What’s more, magnetic resonance imaging “scans conducted nearly nine years after study enrollment also showed that those who reported feeling socially isolated had lower gray matter volume…in areas of the brain linked to learning and memory.” The findingswere published online in the journal Neurology.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

According to Psychiatric News (6/8), the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has “denounced the ‘false and harmful attempts to link mental illness and gun violence’ in a statement issued” June 7 “in partnership with 59 other health, mental health, and youth services organizations.” The statement said, “The horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two adults on May 24th is just one in a long series of mass shootings throughout our country,” adding, “These shootings have one thing in common – easy access to weapons that can kill with terrifying efficiency on a massive scale.”

Related Links:

— “APA Joins Numerous Organizations in Denouncing Attempts to Link Mental Illness and Gun Violence, Psychiatric News, June 8, 2022

Healio (6/7) reports studies have “shown that questions about physicians’ mental health on state licensing and credentialing applications often discourage them from seeking mental health treatment.” Such “questions frequently contain stigmatizing language that lead to concerns about potential repercussions to the physicians’ medical licensure if they acknowledge having mental health conditions, according to Saranya Loehrer, MD, MPH, the founder of C3 Collaboratives and a faculty member at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and Ankita Sagar, MD, MPH, FACP, the system vice president for Clinical Standards and Variation Reduction and Physician Enterprise at CommonSpirit Health.” The two physicians “are working with a national coalition group to remove stigmatizing language regarding mental health on licensing and credentialing applications” as “part of the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, which was recently signed into law to address the stigma that health care professionals face when seeking mental health services.”

Related Links:

— “Q&A: Physicians call for changes to medical licensing applications, Healio, June 7, 2022

Healio (6/7, Downey) reports, “Family member involvement or previous diagnoses of depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder [OCD] is most likely how extremists and conspiracy theorists end up in psychiatric care, Jack S. Rozel, MD, said” in an interview conducted at the American Psychiatric Association 2022 Annual Meeting. Dr. Rozel said, “Someone isn’t going to walk in and want to talk about their racist beliefs or antisemitic ideology.” Rather, “more likely than not, they’re already coming in for depression or OCD and, incidentally, you will see their extremist belief systems,” Dr. Rozel added.

Related Links:

— “VIDEO: Extremists typically do not seek help on their own “Ken Downey Jr., Healio, June 7, 2022

Psychiatric News (6/7) reports, “Patients with schizophrenia who switch from oral antipsychotics to long-acting injectables (LAIs) within the first three years of treatment can reduce their risk of symptom relapse, future rehospitalizations, and mortality,” while “patients who had been taking oral medications for three years or more prior to switching showed no significant improvements outside of improved medication adherence,” investigators concluded in a study that “identified 678 patients who were having a psychotic episode and were switched from oral medication to an LAI during hospitalization; they continued to receive the LAI after discharge.” The findings were published online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Patients With Schizophrenia Switched Early to LAIs Show Markedly Better Long-Term Outcomes, Psychiatric News, June 7, 2022

HCPlive (6/6, Grossi) reports research indicates that “compared with healthy controls, youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) exhibit sleep disturbance on subjective sleep measures but sleep disturbance is not observed with objective sleep measures in this population.” Included in the study were “26 youth with OCD and 35 youth who served as healthy controls.” The findings were presented at SLEEP 2022.

Related Links:

— “
Objective Measures Show Youth with OCD Do Not Experience Increased Sleep Disturbance “Giuliana Grossi, HCPlive, June 6, 2022

Healio (6/6, Marabito) reports, “Adults with autism reported poorer access to healthcare, poorer communication with physicians and a higher prevalence of chronic conditions compared with adults without autism,” investigators concluded in a study that “administered an anonymized, cross-sectional, self-report questionnaire to 1,285 adults with autism and 1,364 adults without autism in the U.K. between July 2019 and January 2021.” The findings were published online May 26 in the journal Molecular Autism.

Related Links:

— “Adults with autism report poorer health care “Maria Marabito, Healio, June 6, 2022