Psychiatric News (3/11) reported, “Older patients who survive severe COVID-19 have a much higher risk of cognitive decline compared with their peers who do not get COVID-19,” researchers posited after analyzing “data from 1,438 COVID-19 survivors older than 60 years who were discharged from three COVID-19–designated hospitals in Wuhan, China, from February 10 to April 10, 2020, including 260 who had severe illness and 1,178 who had nonsevere illness.” Serving as controls were “438 uninfected spouses of infected patients.” The findings were published online March 8 in JAMA Neurology.

Related Links:

— “COVID-19 Raises Risk of Cognitive Decline in Older Patients, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, March 11, 2022

The Hill (3/10, Weixel) reports that in 2021, “about 2.55 million combined U.S. middle and high school students” reported current use of tobacco products, “according to the government’s National Youth Tobacco Survey.” The findingspublished in the CDC’s Morbidity and Morality Weekly Report found that “more than 5 million high school students, and more than 1 million middle schoolers reported using tobacco products at any time in 2021, and the majority of students said they received the product from a friend.” The figures “are down considerably from the 4.47 million tobacco users in 2020.”

CNN (3/10, Nedelman) reports, “Students identifying as LGBT more frequently reported current use of tobacco products: about 14% of lesbian, gay and bisexual students and about 19% of transgender students.” The “numbers were also higher among students experiencing severe psychological distress: 14.2% versus 5.5% among those reporting no distress.”

Related Links:

— “CDC: 2.5M middle and high school students used tobacco products last year “Nathaniel Weixel, The Hill, March 10, 2022

Psychiatric News (3/10) reports, “At age 45, people who reported using cannabis weekly or more frequently over the past year showed greater cognitive decline than those who never used cannabis,” investigators concluded after having “analyzed data from the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, a birth cohort of participants (93% white) born between April 1972 and March 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand.” Each participant was “assessed regularly starting at age three until age 45.” The findings were published online March 8 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Long-Term Cannabis Use Associated With Cognitive Deficits in Midlife, Psychiatric News, March 10, 2022

Healio (3/10, Herpen) reports, “Postpartum unwanted intrusive thoughts based on intentional infant-related harm or obsessive-compulsive disorder [OCD] were not associated with elevated risk of harm to infants,” investigators concluded in a study that “drew from a prospective, province-wide sample of 763 English-speaking women who had just given birth and were aged 19 years and older,” to which “a total of 388 participants responded.” The findings were published online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Postpartum thoughts of infant-related harm, OCD unrelated to risk of maternal aggression “Robert Herpen, Healio, March 10, 2022

mHealth Intelligence (3/9, Melchionna) reports, “Telehealth utilization increased nationally by 11.4 percent between November and December 2021 and rose from 4.4 to 4.9percent of all medical claim lines, according to FAIR Health’s Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker.” According to the December report, “mental health conditions remained at No. 1 nationally,” and “acute respiratory disease was another diagnosis taking up a large share of telehealth claim lines in all regions during this time.” Moreover, “hypertension entered the top five telehealth diagnoses in the South, as did joint and soft tissue diseases in the Northeast.”

Related Links:

— “National Telehealth Use Skyrocketed Amid Omicron Surge “Mark Melchionna, mHealth Intelligence, March 9, 2022

HealthDay (3/9, Preidt) reports, “People with serious mental illness,” that is, “bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder,” appear to “have up to double the risk of heart disease, and should have their heart health monitored from a young age,” investigators concluded.
        
Healio (3/9, Buzby) reports the study observed “elevated 10-year” cardiovascular “risk…among patients with a serious mental illness aged 18 to 59 years without” cardiovascular disease “at baseline.” What’s more, “patients with serious mental illness were more likely to smoke and have BMI of 30 kg/m² or more compared with patients without a serious mental illness,” the study revealed. The findings of the 591,257-patient study were published online March 9 ahead of print in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Related Links:

— “Heart Risks Double for People With Bipolar, Schizophrenia “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, March 9, 2022

HealthDay (3/8, Mann) reports research indicates that some people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) may “improve and return to normal” rather than go on to develop dementia. Investigators arrived at this conclusion after they “analyzed data on 619 U.S. Catholic nuns, age 75 and up, in a long-running study of aging and Alzheimer’s disease.” The study revealed that “participants who earned a bachelor’s degree had more than double the chances of getting their memory back compared to those with a grade school or high school education.” The study also found that “language skills, including those reflected in high grades in English class or in strong writing skills…protected against dementia.” The findings were published online in the journal Neurology.

Related Links:

— “More Evidence That Education May Protect Against Dementia “Denise Mann, HealthDay, March 8, 2022

Healio (3/8, Gramigna) reports, “Compared with the general population, individuals with mental disorders had increased risk for mortality across all disorders,” researchers concluded in a 76-study, systematic review and meta-regression, the findings of which were published online ahead of print in the May issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

Related Links:

— “People with severe mental disorders have ‘persistent mortality gap’ “Joe Gramigna, Healio, March 8, 2022

MedPage Today (3/7, Wu) reports, “Concussion in kids was associated with an increased risk of mental health problems compared with orthopedic injury,” investigators concluded. The “10-year retrospective cohort study from Canada” revealed that “among over 400,000 youths ages five to 18, those who had a concussion were at greater risk for mental health problems,” as well “as self-harm…and psychiatric hospitalization.” In fact, “the incidence rate of any mental health problem was 11,141 per 100,000 person-years in the concussion group versus 7,960 per 100,000 person-years in the orthopedic injury group.” The findings were published online in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

The New York Times (3/7, Belluck) reports, “COVID-19 may cause greater loss of gray matter and tissue damage in the brain than naturally occurs in people who have not been infected with the virus, a large…study finds.” This study” found shrinkage and tissue damage primarily in brain areas related to sense of smell; some of those areas are also involved in other brain functions, the researchers said.” The findings were published in Nature.

USA Today (3/7, Weintraub) reports the study “used before-and-after brain images of 785 British people, ages 51 to 81.” USA Today adds, “Analysis of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ images from the UK Biobank showed that people infected with COVID-19 had a greater reduction in their brain volumes overall and performed worse on cognitive tests than those who had not been infected.” The findings also revealed brain changes among people “who had much milder disease.”

Bloomberg (3/7, Gale) also reports on the study.

Related Links:

— “Covid May Cause Changes in the Brain, New Study Finds “Pam Belluck, The New York Times, March 7, 2022