NPR (4/20) reports that “under the national emergency declared by the Trump Administration in March, the government has suspended a federal law that required patients to have an in-person visit with a physician before they could be prescribed drugs that help quell withdrawal symptoms, such as Suboxone [buprenorphine/naloxone]. Patients can now get those prescriptions via a phone call or videoconference with a doctor.” NPR says that “addiction experts have been calling for that change for years to help expand access for patients in many parts of the country that have shortages of physicians eligible to prescribe these medication-assisted treatments.”

Related Links:

— “Coronavirus Crisis Spurs Access To Online Treatment For Opioid Addiction, “Phil Galewitz, NPR, April 20, 2020

The Washington Post (4/18, Goldstein) reported that just as millions of people in the US have lost their jobs amid the pandemic, many of them have also lost their health insurance. The Washington Post said “in a nation where most health coverage is hinged to employment, the economy’s vanishing jobs are wiping out insurance in the midst of a pandemic.”

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post, (Requires Login and Subscription), April 18, 2020

Healio (4/17, Gramigna) reported a paper published in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity suggests that patients who recover from a coronavirus infection “may experience a significant neuropsychiatric burden long after the current pandemic.” The paper’s authors suggest, in the words of Healio, “researchers should conduct prospective neuropsychiatric and neuroimmune monitoring of those exposed to SARS-CoV-2 at various points in the life course to better understand the long-term impact of COVID-19, as well as to create a framework for the integration of psychoneuroimmunology into epidemiologic studies of pandemics.” The paper’s authors “wrote that influenza pandemics in the 18th and 19th centuries were followed by increased rates of insomnia, anxiety, depression, mania, suicidality and delirium,” while “outbreaks during the 21st century, such as SARS-CoV-1 in 2003, H1N1 in 2009 and MERS-CoV in 2012, were followed by increased rates of narcolepsy, seizures, encephalitis, Guillain-Barre syndrome and other neuromuscular and demyelinating conditions.”

Related Links:

— “COVID-19 survivors may face ‘significant neuropsychiatric burden,’ experts suggest, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, April 17, 2020

NBC News (4/17, Ramgopal) reported on the presence of coronavirus at the Western State Hospital psychiatric facility near Tacoma, Washington. According to NBC News, “thirty-four patients and staffers have tested positive at Western State since the outbreak began, and one patient has died.” NBC News said, “The challenges are different in psychiatric wards,” as “alcohol-based hand sanitizer is an ingestion hazard,” and “isolation can be dangerous.” American Psychiatric Association council member and Chair of psychiatry at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Dr. Robert Trestman said, “Our facilities are designed to encourage people getting together, not to keep people apart.” He added “that the coronavirus outbreak has created major challenges around the nation,” stating, “We are forced to deliver care in ways that historically none of us have ever tried to practice and which are by no means optimum.”

Related Links:

— “Coronavirus in a psychiatric hospital: ‘It’s the worst of all worlds’, “Kit Ramgopal, NBC News, April 17, 2020

MD Magazine (4/16, Campbell) reports research “suggests the presence of visual impairment could help predict risk of incident dementia in older women,” and “the severity of visual impairment appeared to correlate with an increased risk of dementia.” The findings were published in JAMA Ophthalmology.

Related Links:

— “Visual Impairment Linked to Increased Dementia Risk in Aging Women, “Patrick Campbell, MD Magazine, April 16, 2020

Psychiatric News (4/16) reports, “During the era of COVID-19, health care workers and organizations must be deliberate about promoting resilience, wrote Abby R. Rosenberg, MD, MS, MA, of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle in” a viewpoint article published online April 14 in JAMA Pediatrics. In the viewpoint article, Dr. Rosenberg “described ways individual health care workers might bolster resiliency by setting short-term goals for working from home or self-care after a stressful day on the hospital ward.” She wrote that “for organizations, it may involve ‘deliberately celebrating systems-level steps toward shared community goals, such as evidence that local social distancing practices are beginning to flatten the curve.’”

Related Links:

— “Harnessing Resiliency Said to Be Key Path Forward From COVID-19, Psychiatric News, April 16, 2020

MedPage Today (4/15, George) reports, “Adhering to an alternative Mediterranean diet high in vegetables, whole grains, fish, and olive oil was linked to lower risk of cognitive impairment but not to slower cognitive decline in post-hoc analyses,” researchers concluded. In fact, “data from two trials – the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) and AREDS2 – showed that high fish and vegetable consumption appeared to have the greatest protective effect on cognition,” the study found. At the 10-year mark, “AREDS2 participants with the highest fish consumption had the slowest rate of cognitive decline.” The findings were published online in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: the Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (4/15, Gramigna) reports investigators “have reported additional evidence suggesting an independent association between advanced parental age and increased risk for autism spectrum disorder [ASD] among offspring.” For the study, researchers used “data from Danish national health registries” to construct “a parental age cohort to evaluate the relationship of parental age and ASD among 1,476,783 singleton children born from 1990 to 2013,” then “also constructed a multigenerational cohort that included 362,438 fathers and 458,234 mothers born from 1973 to 1990 for whom grandparental age data were available.” The findings of the “population-based, multigenerational cohort study” were published online April 15 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Study suggests link between parental, grandparental age, increased ASD risk, “Joe Gramigna, Healio, April 15, 2020

CNN (4/15, Woodyatt) reports mental health and brain research “must be a higher priority in the response to the coronavirus pandemic, scientists have said, warning that the crisis could have a ‘profound’ and ‘pervasive impact’ on global mental health now and in the future.” In a paper “published Wednesday in the Lancet Psychiatry journal, researchers called for better monitoring of mental health as part of the global response to the pandemic.” The paper, “which draws on the work of 24 mental health experts, including neuroscientists, psychiatrists, psychologists and public health experts, also noted that little is known about the impact of Covid-19 itself on the human nervous system.”

Related Links:

— “Experts warn of urgent need for Covid-19 mental health research, “Amy Woodyatt, CNN, April 15, 2020

HealthDay (4/14, Preidt) reports that “interviews with 750 private security guards in the United Kingdom revealed that nearly 40% had symptoms of PTSD, and also that security guard companies provide them with little mental health support.” In addition, investigators found that “security guards often face verbal and physical abuse – including violent assaults – from the public.” The research was conducted by a team from the University of Portsmouth in England. The article does not disclose where the study was published or presented.

Related Links:

— “4 in 10 Security Guards Suffer PTSD, Study Finds, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 14, 2020