HealthDay (8/22, Reinberg) reports new research found playing contact sports like football or ice hockey can change the structure and function of the brain. After scanning the brains of 65 varsity athletes prior to the start of their sport’s season, researchers found that the 23 people who played collision and contact sports “had differences in brain structure and function compared to people who took part in non-contact sports.” Differences include “changes in the structure of the brain’s white matter, the fibers that connect different parts of the brain, allowing them to communicate with each another.” The findings were published online in Frontiers of Neurology.

Related Links:

— “More Evidence Contact Sports Can Affect the Brain,” Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, August 22, 2017.

HealthDay (8/22, Mozes) reports, “Caring for a family member with a neurological disorder such as dementia is vastly more expensive than caring for a senior who is dementia-free,” researchers found after examining data “from a computer analysis that modeled expenses incurred caring for about 16,000 hypothetical seniors.”

The study revealed that “the average yearly cost of caring for a dementia-free senior is roughly $137,000,” compared to “$321,000 for care of those struggling with dementia.” The findings were published online Aug. 17 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Related Links:

— “Dementia Care: A Huge Financial Burden for U.S. Families,” Alan Mozes, HealthDay, August 22, 2017.

In a 4,700-word piece, Reuters (8/22, Eisler, Szep, Reid, Smith) reports on the number of cases in which a police officer using a Taser results in an unintended death and the litigation that follows.

A Reuters examination of 1,005 fatal police Taser incidents found that a quarter of the victims “were suffering from a mental health breakdown or neurological disorder.” In 90 percent of the incidents, the deceased was unarmed. Over 100 of the fatal encounters began with a 911 call for help during a medical emergency.

Denise Juliano-Bult, who helps coordinate research on services for people with mental illness at the US National Institute of Mental Health, explained people in a mental crisis are often confused and frightened when confronted by police, which may cause tensions to escalate rapidly. She said, “That can lead to unfortunate incidents where the people with mental illness can get injured and the police can get injured.”

Related Links:

— “Special Report: A 911 plea for help, a Taser shot and the toll of stun guns,” Peter Eisler, Jason Szep, Tim Reid and Grant Smith, Reuters via St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 22, 2017.

Healio (8/22, Oldt) reports that just 42 percent of “older adults who screened positively for suicidal ideation and were discharged received a mental health evaluation during their visit” to the emergency department, researchers found. In fact, “older adults with current suicidal ideation or attempt were less likely to receive referral resources, compared with younger adults with current suicidal ideation or attempt (34% vs. 60%).” The findings were published online July 28 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The abstract notes that “a total of 800 charts were reviewed” by investigators.

Related Links:

— “Suicide follow-up severely lacking in older adults,” Arias SA, et al., Healio, August 22, 2017.

Healio (8/22) reports investigators “found that anxiety and depression are strongly linked with glaucoma, an association that does not change with age,” researchers found after examining data on “4,439,518 patients.” The findings were published online in the American Journal of Ophthalmology.

Related Links:

— “Study confirms strong association between anxiety, depression, glaucoma,” Zhang X, et al., Healio, August 22, 2017.

The New York Times (8/21, Yin, Subscription Publication) reports there were “nearly 1.3 million hospitalizations involving opioids…in the United States in 2014,” representing “a 64 percent increase in inpatient stays and a doubling” in opioid-related emergency room visits since 2005, according to data “published this year” by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

The article extensively quotes senior AHRQ researcher Dr. Anne Elixhauser, who said the data “cover all areas, all age groups, male and female. And it’s only getting worse in the time frame we’re looking at here.” The article adds that online data managed by AHRQ “show that most inpatient stays involving opioids over the last decade were among patients covered by Medicaid, closely followed by Medicare patients.”

Related Links:

— “Hospitals Are Clogged With Patients Struggling With Opioids,” STEPH YIN, New York Times, August 21, 2017.

HealthDay (8/21, Reinberg) reports that research published in JAMA Neurology suggests “for seniors, and particularly” black patients, with hypertension, “lowering it may help keep their minds sharp.”

MedPage Today (8/21, Bacher) reports that during “a 10-year period, the greatest decline in cognitive status was seen in people with” systolic blood pressure (SBP) “levels of 150 mm Hg or higher.” Comparatively, “the least cognitive decline occurred in those with SBP levels of 120 mm Hg or lower.”

Healio (8/21) reports that the investigators “found that when compared with white patients, black patients had a greater difference in cognition between the higher and lower systolic BP levels: adjusted differences between the group with levels of 150 mm Hg or higher and the group with levels of 120 mm Hg or lower were –0.05 in white patients and –0.08 in black patients for Modified Mini-Mental State Examinations…and –0.07 in white patients and –0.13 in black patients for the Digit Symbol Substitution Test.” Data from “1,657 cognitively intact older adults” were used in the study.

Related Links:

— “Lower Blood Pressure Best for Seniors’ Minds,” Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, August 21, 2017.

Healio (8/21, Oldt) reports, “Risks for head injuries and traumatic brain injuries [TBI] were significantly higher among adults newly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease who recently began using antidepressants,” researchers found after conducting “a matched cohort study of 10,910 new antidepressant users and 21,280 matched nonusers between 2005 and 2011.” The findings were published Aug. 1 in Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy.

Related Links:

— “Antidepressant use in Alzheimer’s disease increases risk for head injury, TBI,” Taipale H, et al., Healio, August 21, 2017.

HealthDay (8/18, Preidt) reported that research published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology suggests “proton pump inhibitors do not appear to increase Alzheimer’s disease risk.” Investigators analyzed “data from Finland on nearly 71,000 Alzheimer’s disease patients and nearly 283,000 people without the disease.”

The researchers “found that use of the drugs was not associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s, even among those who took a higher dose or used the drugs for more than three years.”

Related Links:

— “Popular Heartburn Drugs Don’t Raise Risk of Alzheimer’s: Study,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, August 18, 2017.

Reuters (8/17, Rapaport) reports that research suggests “men with gambling addictions are more likely than their peers to have endured childhood traumas like physical abuse or violence at home, and treatment needs to address this underlying stressor.”

In the study of more than 3,000 men, investigators found that “compared with men who rarely if ever placed wagers, the men with a pathological addiction to gambling were more than twice as likely to have witnessed violence at home or to have experienced physical abuse or assault growing up.”

Additionally, “they were…more than three times as likely to have suffered a serious or life-threatening injury as” children. The findings were published in Addictive Behaviors.

Related Links:

— “Adult gambling addiction tied to childhood trauma,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, August 17, 2017.