The CBS Evening News (5/2, story 9, 2:35, Pelley) reported, “The Centers for Disease Control said suicides are now the tenth-leading cause of death in this country. In 2010, more than 38,000 Americans took their own lives and that is nearly 5,000 more than died in traffic accidents.”

On its front page, the New York Times (5/3, A1, Parker-Pope, Subscription Publication) reports, “Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm,” according to findings published in the May 3 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Related Links:

— “Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S., “Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times, May 2, 2013.

Medwire (5/1, McDermid) reports, “Patients with bipolar disorder [BD] are more likely to adhere to their medication if they have a positive perception of their relationship with their psychiatrist,” according to a study published online April 19 in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. “A range of positive factors in the Helping Alliance Questionnaire were significantly associated with medication adherence in the 3,337 patients with bipolar disorder who participated in the six-year study. These were being dependent on the psychiatrist, having a good relationship with them, respecting their views, and having meaningful exchanges with them.” Patients also had a higher likelihood of adhering to their medication if they felt understood by their psychiatrists.

Related Links:

— “Therapeutic alliance influences bipolar disorder medication adherence, “Eleanor McDermid, Medwire News, May 1, 2013.

The New York Times (5/1, A10, Schwarz, Subscription Publication) reports that “dozens of colleges [are] tightening the rules on the diagnosis of” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) “and the subsequent prescription of amphetamine-based medications” to treat it. “Some schools are reconsidering how their student health offices handle AD/HD, and even if they should at all. Various studies have estimated that as many as 35 percent of college students illicitly take these stimulants to provide jolts of focus and drive during finals and other periods of heavy stress.”

Lawsuit Filed Against Harvard Spotlights Issues Involving AD/HD Diagnosis. In a related story, the New York Times (5/1, A12, Schwarz, Subscription Publication) reports that a lawsuit filed against Harvard University “provides rare detail on the issues involving a diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [AD/HD] from a student-health department.” The case centers around a rising sophomore who had been prescribed a medication for AD/HD “after a single examination at Harvard University Health Services.” The young man went on to commit suicide about half a year later after he received a prescription for antidepressants. The father of the victim “contends, among other accusations, that his son had never had AD/HD and that Harvard’s original diagnostic procedure, and subsequent prescriptions for Adderall [amphetamine mixed salts], did not meet medical standards.”

Related Links:

— “Attention-Deficit Drugs Face New Campus Rules, “Alan Schwarz, The New York Times, April 30, 2013.

HealthDay (4/30, Mann) reports that the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) “around the time of surgery may increase risks associated with the procedure, including bleeding, the need for a blood transfusion, hospital readmission and even death,” according to research published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Investigators looked at data on “more than half a million people who had surgery at 375 U.S. hospitals between 2006 and 2008.”

MedPage Today (4/30, Phend) reports that individuals “on SSRIs in the perioperative period had 20% higher odds of dying in the hospital after elective major surgery (95% CI 1.07 to 1.36) compared with all other patients.” The researchers also found that “bleeds and early readmission to the hospital also occurred more often among those patients.” However, these results did not “prove causality.”

Related Links:

— “Some Antidepressants Linked to Bleeding Risk With Surgery, “Denise Mann, HealthDay, April 29, 2013.

Medscape (4/30, Lowry) reports, “Emotional abuse experienced in childhood, especially in children aged five years and younger, confers an increased risk for bipolar disorder [BD],” according to research presented April 24 at the 14th International Congress on Schizophrenia Research. The study involved more than 700 patients and controls. “Regression analysis showed that children who were emotionally abused were more than twice as likely to develop bipolar disorder (odds ratio [OR], 2.14; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.51 – 3.02).”

Alabama Live (4/30, Oliver) reports that people who follow a Mediterranean diet “were 19 percent less likely to develop problems with their thinking and memory skills,” according to a studypublished April 29 in the journal Neurology.

HealthDay (4/30, Reinberg) reports, “Using data from participants enrolled in a nationwide study on stroke, the researchers gleaned diet information from more than 17,000 white and black men and women whose average age was 64.” Study “participants also took tests that measured their memory and thinking (cognitive) skills.”

Related Links:

— “Mediterranean Diet Might Help Stave Off Dementia, “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, April 29, 2013.

In an editorial, the New York Times (4/27, Subscription Publication) said that the US “is beginning to realize that it cannot enforce or imprison its way out of the addiction problem,” but in order to “create broadly accessible and effective treatment strategies for the millions of people who need them, it must abandon the ‘drug war’ approach to addiction that has dominated the national discourse in favor of a policy that treats addiction as a public health issue.” The Affordable Care Act “sets the stage for such a transformation by barring insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, including substance dependency.”

Related Links:

— “The Next Step in Drug Treatment, “The Editorial Board, The New York Times, April 26, 2013.

In the New York Times (4/28, Subscription Publication) Magazine, Linda Logan wrote about her own experience with bipolar disorder and how treatment is gradually shifting to address the lost sense of self that plagues patients. “For many people with mental disorders, the transformation of the self is one of the most disturbing things about being ill. And their despair is heightened when doctors don’t engage with the issue, don’t ask about what parts of the self have vanished and don’t help figure out strategies to deal with that loss.” She writes that too much of treatment is now medicine-based, “and a patient’s crisis of self is not very likely to come up in a 15-minute session with a psychopharmacologist.”

Related Links:

— “The Problem With How We Treat Bipolar Disorder, “Linda Logan, The New York Times, April 26, 2013.

The Wall Street Journal (4/26, A6, Kesling, Levitz, Subscription Publication) reports on how first responders to the Boston Marathon Bombing are receiving mental-health therapy in order to ward off psychological inflections, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis has notably called for large-scale counseling efforts. He said, “We are extremely concerned” about the well-being of the first responders, adding he would also see a therapist.

Boston Bombing Victims Begin Long, Painful Recovery. In a front-page story, The New York Times (4/26, A1, Goodnough, Bidgood, Subscription Publication) reports in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, many of the survivors have suffered “complex wounds that are causing intense pain and that will require several more operations.” Some will require surgery “to repair bones, veins and nerves,” while more will need physical therapy. Besides the physical ailments, many victims are experiencing “phantom pain” of lost limbs and post-traumatic stress disorder “that may continue indefinitely.” At Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, “a team of doctors, nurses, psychologists and physical therapists will focus exclusively on the bombing victims, many of whom will be fitted with prosthetic legs while they are there. Inpatient rehabilitation usually lasts a few weeks, said Dr. Ross Zafonte, Spaulding’s chief medical officer, although some of these patients will be there longer.”

Related Links:

— “First Responders Seek Out Counseling as Attitudes Shift, “Ben Kesling, The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2013.

Medwire (4/26, McDermid) reports, “The longer patients with first-episode psychosis go untreated, the less likely they are to achieve remission within a year of starting treatment,” according to a study published April 30 in the journal Psychiatry Research. The 153-patient study revealed that “the average duration of untreated psychosis was 8.8 months in patients who achieved remission versus 15.6 months in those who did not.” The investigators found that “just three factors predicted remission: longer duration of untreated psychosis; worse negative symptoms (higher Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms [SANS] scores); and having completed only primary education.”

Related Links:

— “Delayed psychosis treatment harms chance of success, “Eleanor McDermid, Medwire News, April 26, 2013.