MedPage Today (9/30, George ) reports, “A new diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia was more common after falls than after other traumatic injuries, an analysis of Medicare claims data showed.”

Investigators “assessed nearly 2.5 million older adults who had a traumatic injury that led to an emergency department…visit or inpatient admission.” Approximately half of those in the study were injured as a result of a fall.

The data indicated that “within 1 year, new dementia diagnoses were more common in people with falls than other injuries.” The researchers found, “after controlling for potential confounders and accounting for the competing risk of death, falling was tied to a 21% increased risk of a subsequent dementia diagnosis.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Psychiatric News (9/30) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “Dementia Diagnosis More Common in Older Adults After Falls Than Other Injuries,” Psychiatric News, September 30, 2024

CNN (9/26, Christensen ) reports, “People in the United States who identify as transgender or nonbinary make up only a tiny fraction of the population, but they’ve been the targets of an outsized share of negative attention from lawmakers, a new study says – and those laws can have potentially deadly consequences.” The study “found that when anti-trans legislation becomes state law, suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary young people rise, with increases of up to 72% among teens who live in states where those bills become law.” The findings were published in Nature Human Behavior.

Related Links:

— “Suicide attempts increased among transgender teens when states passed anti-trans laws, study says,”Jen Christensen, CNN, September 26, 2024

Psychiatric News (9/26) reports, “Psychotherapy can be effective at reducing suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in at-risk individuals – even if the psychotherapy does not directly focus on suicidality, according to a meta-analysis.” Researchers found that “both direct and indirect psychotherapy were associated with comparable, modest reductions in the severity of suicidal ideation.” Study results indicate that “direct and indirect psychotherapy were also associated with a 28% and a 32% reduced risk of suicide attempt, respectively.” The findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Psychotherapies That Address Suicidality Directly or Indirectly Are Comparably Effective, Psychiatric News , September 26, 2024

The AP (9/26, Stobbe ) reports, “U.S. suicides last year remained at about the highest level in the nation’s history, preliminary data suggests.” A little more than “49,300 suicide deaths were reported in 2023, according to provisional data from the” CDC. Meanwhile, “just under 49,500 were reported in 2022, according to final data released” by the CDC on Thursday. The figures “are close enough that the suicide rate for the two years are the same, CDC officials said.”

The New York Times (9/26, Caron ) reports “women are increasingly using guns to die by suicide in the United States, challenging long-held assumptions that they will usually resort to less lethal means, according to” the CDC data. The findings “showed that in 2022, 20 out of every million women used a gun to die by suicide, up from 14 women in 2002,” marking a 43% increase. The data also show “that suicide rates have risen among women over the past two decades.”

USA Today (9/26, Cuevas ) reports the data show “firearms were used in more than half the country’s record 49,500 suicide deaths in 2022.”

Related Links:

— “US suicides held steady in 2023 — at a very high level, “Mike Stobbe , AP , September 26, 2024

HealthDay (9/25, Foster ) reports, “In a move that could mean more Americans in crisis get help and get it quickly, federal officials announced Tuesday that major cellphone carriers now have the technology to direct 988 callers to local mental health services based on their location instead of their area code.” Verizon and T-Mobile began “rolling out the ‘georouting’ technology last week, CNN reported.” Once the change is fully implemented, it “will cover about half of all wireless calls to the 988 lifeline.” AT&T “plans to begin the process within the next couple months.” In October, “the Federal Communications Commission will vote on a rule that would require all wireless carriers to use georouting for 988 calls.”

Related Links:

— “988 Mental Health Crisis Calls Now Link to Caller Location, Not Area Code,”Robin Foster, HealthDay , September 25, 2024

HealthDay (9/25, Mundell ) reports, “Only 1 in every 4 U.S. adults struggling with schizophrenia receive ‘minimally adequate treatment,’ new data shows.” Furthermore, many of these patients “struggle with other mental health issues, such as substance abuse or depression, and they are further challenged by social and economic hardship, according to the new report.” Natalie Bareis, an assistant professor of clinical behavioral medicine at Columbia University, said in an APA news release that “persistent high rates of poverty, unemployment and poor functioning suggest that existing treatment and social welfare approaches are not meeting the needs of many people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.” The findings were published in Psychiatric Services.

Psychiatric News (9/25) says the research found that “71% of individuals with lifetime schizophrenia spectrum disorders reported some mental health treatment in the past year – 56% had at least one outpatient visit, 9% had an inpatient or residential stay, and 58% were currently taking a psychotropic medication.”

Related Links:

— “Most People With Schizophrenia Aren’t Getting Treated,”Ernie Mundell, HealthDay , September 25, 2024

Fierce Healthcare (9/24, Muoio ) reports that on Tuesday, HHS “unveiled $74.5 million of new grant awards to support substance use disorder, maternal and hospital care services in rural areas.” Most “of the money – $53.7 million over four years by way of HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration – will be doled out to 18 organizations in 14 states working to improve access to treatment and recovery services for substance use disorder and opioid use disorder, the administration said.” That funding “will build upon or create new access points for treatment in collaboration with the local behavioral health workforce and social services.”

Related Links:

— “Biden admin awards $75M to address rural care pain points,”Dave Muoio, Fierce Healthcare, September 24, 2024

The Hill (9/24, O’Connell-Domenech ) reports, “Just 44 percent of jails offer incarcerated people with opioid use disorder [OUD] medications like methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone to treat addiction, according to a new analysis of 1,028 jails from the National Institute of Drug Abuse.” The “researchers also note that jails that do offer medication for opioid use disorder mostly offer those drugs to people who are pregnant or who are already receiving the drugs at the time of their arrest.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

HealthDay (9/24, Mundell ) reports researchers found that “even when methadone, naltrexone or buprenorphine were available, only 12.8% of jails made them easily available to anyone with an opioid use disorder.” Study results indicate that “the reason most often cited by jails as to why they weren’t offering the meds to all who needed them was ‘lack of adequate licensed staff’ – about half blamed lack of access on staffing issues.”

Psychiatric News (9/24) reports, “The analysis also showed that smaller jails, jails in areas of greater social vulnerability, and jails that did not have either direct employees or contracted vendors managing health care were less likely to provide OUD medications.”

Related Links:

— “Fewer than half of US jails provide medications for opioid use disorder,”Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech , The Hill, September 24, 2024

HealthDay (9/23, Thompson ) reports, “One in three former NFL players believe they have football-relatedbrain damage that’s doing untold harm to their lives, a new study finds.” Regrettably, their concerns may be adversely affecting “their mental health on top of whatever risks they face from head injuries sustained during their careers, researchers report.” HealthDay adds that “about one-third of nearly 2,000 retired NFL players believe they have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain condition linked to repeated head trauma, researchers reported.” The research was published in JAMA Neurology.

Psychiatric News (9/23) reports that “chronic traumatic encephalopathy neuropathological changes (CTE-NC) can only be determined at autopsy, so there is no way to tell whether living former football players who perceive themselves as having CTE actually have biological changes indicative of the condition.” The researchers said, “Football players, lay people, clinicians, and popular media outlets often refer to CTE as a singular entity occurring in living and deceased individuals to represent CTE-NC and/or TES [traumatic encephalopathy syndrome – a proposed clinical diagnosis characterized by cognitive impairment and problems controlling behavior] interchangeably.” They added, “CTE is often presented as manifesting in living people as cognitive impairment, mood disorders, and suicidality, even though depression and suicidality are not part of the TES core clinical features.”

Related Links:

— “Many Former NFL Players Believe They Have CTE, Raising Suicide Risk,”Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, September 23, 2024

The Los Angeles Times (9/20, Luna ) reported California “took a major step in its fight to protect children from the ills of social media with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature on a bill to limit the ability of companies to provide ‘addictive feeds’ to minors.” The legislation, which becomes effective January 1, 2027, bars “internet service and applications from providing ‘addictive feeds,’ defined as media curated based on information gathered on or provided by the user, to minors without parental consent. SB 976 also bans companies from sending notifications to users identified as minors between midnight and 6 a.m. or during the school day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. unless parents give the OK.”

Also reporting were the AP (9/21) and the New York Times (9/21, Hubler , Qin ).

Related Links:

— “Newsom signs California bill to limit ‘addictive’ social media feeds for kids,”Taryn Luna , The Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2024