The AP (8/23, Dazio) reports that according to experts and some mental health advocates, short video clips “posted on official law enforcement social media accounts, part of a longstanding practice by police agencies to showcase their lifesaving efforts online,” should be looked at “with an eye toward whether they exploit the very victims law enforcement just saved.” For example, “the American Association of Suicidology specifically suggests that any reporting on suicide or suicide attempts not include the method or location,” and even “recommends that photos and videos from the scene also be excluded, even if the person’s identity is concealed.” Meanwhile, “Daniel Reidenberg, executive director of the Minnesota-based Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, said such social media posts may actually deter viewers from calling 911, for fear they might also get handcuffed or arrested.”

Related Links:

— “Mental health online: Police posts of crises may traumatize “Stefanie Dazio, AP, August 23, 2021

In “The New Old Age,” the New York Times (8/23, Span) reports that certain behaviors, such as “overlooking a couple of credit card payments or habitually braking while driving,” may indicate “pathologies underlying brain decline” that “can begin years before symptoms” of dementia emerge. For example, one study published online June 14 in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy that “enrolled 64 older adults with preclinical Alzheimer’s, as determined by spinal taps (the results were not shared with participants), and 75 who were deemed cognitively normal,” revealed that “driving behavior and age could predict preclinical Alzheimer’s 88 percent of the time.” Likewise, a study published last November in JAMA Internal Medicine that analyzed “medical records and consumer credit reports for more than 80,000 Medicare beneficiaries showed that seniors who eventually received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease were significantly more likely to have delinquent credit card payments than those who were demographically similar but never received such diagnoses,” and were also “more likely to have subprime credit scores.”

Related Links:

— “Seeking Early Signals of Dementia in Driving and Credit Scores ” Paula Span, The New York Times, August 23, 2021

Kaiser Health News (8/23, Pattani) reports, “Interviews with a dozen suicide researchers, data collected from states across the country and a review of decades of research revealed that suicide is a growing crisis for communities of color – one that plagued them well before the” COVID-19 pandemic “and has only been exacerbated since.” In fact, “research shows Black kids younger than 13 die by suicide at nearly twice the rate of white kids and, over time, their suicide rates have grown even as rates have decreased for white children.” Among adolescents and “young adults, suicide deaths have increased more than 45% for Black Americans and about 40% for Asian Americans in the seven years ending in 2019.” The pandemic has only “intensified” societal “hardships among communities of color, with disproportionate numbers of lost loved ones, lost jobs and lost housing.” Investigators “say the promise of a good future is often overlooked in suicide prevention, perhaps because achieving it” does require “economic and social growth and breaking systemic barriers.”

Related Links:

— “Pandemic Unveils Growing Suicide Crisis for Communities of Color “Aneri Pattani, aiser Health News, August 23, 2021

Psychiatric News (8/20) reported, “Patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) who have used telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic are largely satisfied with the quality of care they receive,” investigators concluded in a 58-patient survey study, the findings of which were published online Aug. 17 in the American Journal on Addictions.

Related Links:

— “Telehealth Finds Favor Among Patients With Substance Use Disorders, Psychiatric News, August 20, 2021

The AP (8/20, Fingerhut, Anderson) reported, “Anxiety in the United States over COVID-19 is at its highest level since winter, a new poll shows, as the delta variant rages, more states and school districts adopt mask and vaccination requirements and the nation’s hospitals once again fill to capacity.” The poll (PDF) published by Associated Press-NORC Center shows that “41% [of 1,729 adults] are ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ worried about themselves or their family becoming infected with the virus. That is up from 21% in June, and about the same as in January, during the country’s last major surge, when 43% were extremely or very worried.”

HealthDay (8/20, Preidt) reported the poll also found that “nearly six in 10 favor requiring full vaccination for people to travel on airplanes or attend crowded public events, while roughly one-quarter oppose such measures.” The Hill (8/20, Vakil) also reported on the poll.

Related Links:

— “COVID anxiety rising amid delta surge, AP-NORC poll finds “James Anderson and Hannah Fingerhut, AP, August 20, 2021

HealthDay (8/19, Thompson) reports research indicates that “some key brain functions can improve in people as they age, researchers” concluded after examining “three components of mental ability in a group of more than 700 Taiwanese people between 58 and 98 years of age,” including “alerting, the enhanced vigilance that triggers one’s attention to incoming information; orienting, the ability to shift brain resources to a particular location in our environment,” and “executive inhibition, the ability to ignore distractions to focus on what’s important.” The study revealed that with “increasing age, many people appear to get better at focusing on important matters and ignoring distractions – tasks that support other critical brain functions like memory, decision making and self-control.” The findings were published online in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

Related Links:

— “Neuro Surprise: Some Brain Skills Might Improve With Age “Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, August 19, 2021

MedPage Today (8/19, Grant) reports, “Nearly half of emergency medicine (EM) residents in the U.S (45.1%) reported being exposed to some form of mistreatment,” ranging “from discrimination based on race or gender to verbal and physical abuse,” according to findings from “a large survey study” published in JAMA Network Open. Researchers “also found a significant association between the frequency of mistreatment and reports of suicidal thoughts among EM trainees.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (8/19, Gramigna) reports, “Co-occurrence of multiple abuse subtypes across childhood and adulthood was linked to higher psycho-social risk and suicide attempt history among military service members hospitalized due to suicide risk,” investigators concluded in a “latent class analysis” that sought “to elucidate how these abuse subtypes co-occur during childhood and adulthood among a high-risk sample of 115 military service members and adult beneficiaries who underwent psychiatric hospitalization after a suicide-related crisis.” The findings were published online ahead of print in the October issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
“ Three latent classes were identified: Multiple and Persistent Abuse (Class One: 29.6%), Childhood Physical and Persistent Emotional Abuse (Class Two: 27.0%), and Minimal Abuse (Class Three: 43.5%). Females were more likely than males to report a history of Multiple and Persistent Abuse. After controlling for gender, the Multiple and Persistent Abuse Class had higher scores of depressive symptoms and hazardous drinking, poorer sleep quality, and increased social stress than the Minimal Abuse Class. Moreover, the Multiple and Persistent Abuse Class was associated with increased likelihood of lifetime” suicide attempts.

Related Links:

— “Abuse subtypes affect suicide risk among military psychiatric inpatients “Joe Gramigna, Healio, August 19, 2021

Healio (8/18, Gramigna) reports, “Patients hospitalized with serious mental illness had a cardiometabolic profile that conferred increased risk for diabetes and hypertension-related mortality,” researchers concluded in a study that “used a form of propensity score matching called entropy balancing to compare cardiometabolic health of a sample of the general population from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey…datasets with that of inpatients hospitalized in an urban psychiatric hospital in Texas.” The study team “analyzed data via independent linear regression models, with outcome variables including blood pressure, blood glucose, triglyceride to high-density lipoprotein…ratio, total cholesterol and BMI.” The findings of the “observational study” were published online ahead of print in the October issue of the journal Psychiatry Research.

Related Links:

— “Inpatients with severe mental illness at increased risk for diabetes, hypertension “Joe Gramigna, Healio, August 18, 2021

Healio (8/17, Gramigna) reports, “Austedo [deutetrabenazine] treatment appeared to improve involuntary movements and quality of life [QoL] among older adults with tardive dyskinesia,” researchers concluded in “a post hoc analysis of a long-term open-label extension study” that enrolled “a total of 337 participants.” The study revealed that “a total of 67% of younger and 76% of older participants, as well as 64% of younger and 63% of older participants, achieved treatment success,” and “both groups generally well tolerated deutetrabenazine.” The findings were published online Aug. 15 ahead of print in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Austedo improves quality of life in older adults with tardive dyskinesia “Joe Gramigna, Healio, August 17, 2021