The Washington Post (8/8, Hicks) reports, “Mental-health advocates on Monday demanded that Maryland hire more state hospital staff and reopen facilities that once housed patients, arguing that the moves could relieve pressure on jails as a backlog of people await court-ordered psychological evaluations.” Officials with AFSCME Maryland Council 3, “the largest union representing Maryland public employees, released figures from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene showing that the agency has more than 500 staff vacancies.” They “said the department should fill many of those openings with mental-health workers to help trim the backlog.”

Related Links:

— “Mental-health advocates say Maryland desperately needs more hospital staff,” Josh Hicks, Washington Post, August 8, 2016.

HCP Live (8/8, Smith) reports that “patients who take warfarin for atrial fibrillation (AF) are more likely to develop dementia than people who take the drug for the long-term treatment of other conditions,” research suggests. The findings of the 10,537-patient study were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Related Links:

— “Long-Term Dementia Risk and Warfarin Treatment in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation – See more at: http://www.hcplive.com/medical-news/long-term-dementia-risk-and-warfarin-treatment-in-patients-with-atrial-fibrillation#sthash.vkzoiByi.dpuf,” Andrew Smith, HCP Live, August 8, 2016.

Medscape (8/8, Brooks) reports that a study published in the August issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, “supports a link between inflammation and depression and the antidepressant potential of combining a statin with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).”

The 872,216-patient study revealed that patients “with depression who took both an SSRI and a statin were far less likely to contact a psychiatric hospital, both in general and for treatment of depression, than their peers who took an SSRI alone.” An accompanying editorial observes the findings warrant “further investigation of the antidepressant potential of the combined treatment in larger randomized trials.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (8/5, Preidt) reported that adolescents “struggling with mental health disorders are more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and use marijuana,” researchers found. The findings of the 4,000-student study were published online in the American Journal on Addictions.

Related Links:

— “Mental Illness May Make Teens Vulnerable to Drugs, Alcohol,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, August 5, 2016.

Medical Daily (8/5, Dovey) reported that “a recent study” published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics “has found evidence that the risk of a child developing an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is 14 times higher if an older sibling has ASD.” The study’s “findings are based on the results of the medical records of 53,336 children born from 2001 to 2010.”

Related Links:

— “Children With Autism May Increase Siblings’ Risk Of Developing The Disorder,” Dana Dovey , Medical Daily, August 5, 2016.

TIME (8/4) reports, “Psychiatrists and mental health advocates say America today needs more than 30,000 child and adolescent psychiatrists, and has only 8,300,” a need that continues to increase, particularly in rural or underserved areas. Telepsychiatry has now “emerged as a practical approach to reaching more young people.” And, “despite any potential downsides…the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics all acknowledge its prominence and offer resources for patients and” healthcare professionals “on how to practice it.”

Related Links:

— “For Some Rural Teens, Psychiatric Help Is Now Just a TV Screen Away,” Emma Ockerman, Time, August 4, 2016.

The Washington Post (8/3, Guo) reports in “Wonkblog” that a study published in the Journal of Family Psychology found that “getting married causes both men and women to drink less often compared to being single” and “also causes both men and women to cut down on the number of drinks they have in a single sitting — men in particular.” In addition, “getting a divorce doesn’t seem to make people drink more often, but both men and women have more drinks in each sitting.” Researchers evaluated “nearly 2,500 pairs of male and female twins from the state of Washington, who answered questions how often and how much they usually drink.”

Related Links:

— “Marriage changes how men drink in weird ways,” Jeff Guo, Washington Post, August 3, 2016.

Medical Daily (8/3, Dovey) reports, “Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease may share many of the same symptoms, but the two are not different names for the same condition.” The article goes on to explain that “dementia is a syndrome, or a group of symptoms that consistently occur together,” and “is not a specific disease.”

Related Links:

— “Alzheimer’s vs. Dementia: How They Differ And What To Do,” Dana Dovey, Medical Daily, August 3, 2016.

On its website, CNBC (8/1, Mangan) reports a new analysis conducted by FAIR Health found that healthcare claims for people addicted to prescription pain medications “and heroin skyrocketed as the number of Americans who fatally overdosed on those opioids hit record highs.” Data show the number of such claims rose by 3,204 percent from 2007 to 2014

The analysis also revealed “other disturbingly sharp spikes upwards in the number of private insurance claims related to opioid abuse, drug dependence by pregnant women and heroin overdoses since 2011.”

Related Links:

— “Opioid-related insurance claims rose more than 3,000 percent 2007 to 2014,” Dan Mangan, CNBC, August 1, 2016.

Medscape (8/2, Brooks) reports an analysis by a WHO-led global advisory group concluded “dementia prevention, risk reduction, and delivery of high-quality care are global dementia research priorities.” The World Alzheimer Report 2015 found that the number of people living with dementia globally is “expected to rise from the current 46 million to 131.5 million by 2050.” Global treatment costs are estimated to jump from $818 billion in 2015 to $1 trillion by 2018 and $2 trillion by 2030. The WHO analysis, which included input from over 200 researchers and stakeholders, concluded a series of “overarching research goals.” Among the top 10 overall research priorities include “prevention, identification and reduction of dementia risk, and delivery and quality of care for dementia patients and their caregivers.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)