Psychiatric News (12/5) reports that in a Law & Psychiatry column in Psychiatric Services, past APA President Paul Appelbaum, MD, wrote about “the issue of older people in important positions who may be experiencing cognitive limitations.”

Appelbaum “described two federal laws that prohibit discrimination based on age – the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act – before noting that under federal law, employers are permitted to conduct [targeted] assessments of employees who show signs of impairment.” He said, “Applying that rule in a fashion that is fair to employees, and protective of the interests of employers and the public, is the difficult, but vital, task ahead.”

Related Links:

— “Targeted Assessments May Help Identify Workers Experiencing Cognitive Impairment,” APA Psychiatric News Alert, December 5, 2023

NBC News (12/5, Edwards) reports, “At least 10 babies – possibly more than 12 – have been identified with what” physicians “believe to be a new syndrome related to exposure to fentanyl in the womb.” The infants “have distinctive physical birth defects, such as cleft palate and unusually small heads.” Although no common genetic cause has been uncovered, “all were born to mothers who said they’d used street drugs, particularly fentanyl, while they were pregnant.”

HealthDay (12/5, Foster) reports the research was published in Genetics in Medicine Open.

Related Links:

— “New syndrome in newborns exposed to fentanyl possibly found,” Erika Edwards, NBC News, December 5, 2023

HealthDay (12/5, Mundell) reports “suicide rates for Americans under the age of 18 are rising at unprecedented rates, and a new report points to a likely culprit: The ongoing epidemic of opioid abuse.” Researchers “found the biggest uptick in” child suicide rates “occurred in states where the shift to illicit opioids was most pronounced” due to conditions in their environments worsening due to the opioid crisis. The findings were published in Demography.

Related Links:

— “Opioid Crisis May Be Driving Surge in Youth Suicides,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, December 5, 2023

MedPage Today (12/4, DePeau-Wilson) reports, “Suicide rates among Black women increased from 1999 to 2020, especially among teens and young adults, according to an analysis of national data.” The increases “were concentrated among Black women and girls ages 15 to 24, rising from 1.9 to 4.9 per 100,000 during that time period, the researchers reported.” The findings were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (12/1, Mundell) reported that having a “naturally sunny disposition” may “protect you from dementia as the years advance…research shows.” According to a team at Northwestern University in Chicago, “certain personality traits – being conscientious, outgoing and positive – appear to lower a person’s odds for a dementia diagnosis.” Meanwhile, “being neurotic and more negative in outlook and behavior was tied to a higher risk for mental decline.”

The findings were published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

Related Links:

— “Your Personality Might Help Shield You From Dementia,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, December 1, 2023

HealthDay (12/1, Mundell) reported research from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found that “participating in repeated collision sports like football may have a direct link to long-term inflammation in the brain.” Additionally, “football players … performed notably worse than swimmers on tests that tracked learning and memory skills.” The researchers “examined PET and MRI brain scans of 27 former NFL players, taken between 2018 and early 2023.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Persistent Inflammation Could Drive Brain Issues in Former Football Players,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, December 1, 2023

mHealth Intelligence (12/1, Vaidya) reported that “while telehealth use has dropped nearly 25 percentage points from peak usage in 2020, certain specialties, like mental health, infectious disease, and obstetrics, still have higher-than-average telehealth use, according to new data” from Epic Research.

Usage of telehealth “skyrocketed during the initial peak early in the pandemic but has since declined, though usage remains higher than pre-pandemic levels.” The data show “telehealth use encompassed less than 1 percent of all visits in the last three quarters of 2019,” but that “figure jumped to 31.2 percent in Q2 2020 before dropping to 5.8 percent in Q3 2023.”

Related Links:

— “Telehealth Use Remains High in Mental Health, Infectious Disease Care,” Anuja Vaidya, mHealth Intelligence, December 1, 2023

Psychiatric News (12/1) reported “alcohol intoxication is associated with an increased risk of suicide death by firearms compared with other methods, especially among males and among young and middle-aged females, a study” suggests. The study found “young and middle-aged females who were intoxicated at the time of death had a 31% and 34% greater risk of using a firearm compared with their non-intoxicated peers, respectively.”

Meanwhile, “young, middle-aged, and older intoxicated males had a 28%, 17%, and 4% increased risk of using a firearm compared with their non-intoxicated peers, respectively.” The findings were published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Study Highlights Relationship Between Alcohol, Suicide, and Firearms,” APA Psychiatric News Alert, December 1, 2023

The New York Times (11/30, Barry) reports that a group of researchers at Yale University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai “conducted brain scans of 28 people with PTSD” in an attempt to find empirical evidence that “traumatic memories function differently from other memories.”

The scans “found clear differences, the researchers reported,” demonstrating that people listening to sad memories “showed consistently high engagement of the hippocampus.” However, when “the same people listened to their traumatic memories … the hippocampus was not involved.” The findings were published in Nature.

Related Links:

— “Brain Study Suggests Traumatic Memories Are Processed as Present Experience,” Ellen Barry, New York Times, November 30, 2023

Psychiatric News (11/30) reports, “Callers posing as mothers of adolescents with trauma symptoms who tried scheduling outpatient appointments at safety-net mental health centers were successful during only 17% of calls,” according to a study. Additionally, researchers also “identified a bias against non-White callers.” The findings were published in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Moms Encounter Barriers, Discrimination to Accessing MH Care for Traumatized Youth,” APA Psychiatric News Alert, November 30, 2023