HealthDay (4/16, Goodman) reports, “Regular exercise slows disability and prevents falls in patients with Alzheimer’s disease without increasing overall costs,” according to a study published online April 15 in JAMA Internal Medicine. “For the study…researchers chose more than 200 patients with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease who were living at home with a caregiver and showing signs of physical decline. The patients were randomly assigned to one of three groups: home exercise, group exercise at a day care center, or a control group that got usual care through the Finnish national health care system.”

MedPage Today (4/16, Smith) reports that in the “randomized, controlled trial, supervised exercise, whether at home or at a day care center, slowed physical deterioration.” In addition, “the costs for patients in the exercise programs were similar or lower than those associated with a control program of usual community care,” the study found. An accompanying commentary “concluded that the study suggests the ‘good news’ of a benefit from exercise may apply even to people ‘well into the process of decline.'”

Small Study: Exercise May Help Stave Off Problems In Memory, Thinking. On its “Morning Edition” program and in its “Shots” blog, NPR (4/15, Neighmond) reported that exercise may help “stave off problems in memory and thinking.” Neuroscientist Art Kramer, director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the University of Illinois, performed “a study in which he scanned the brains of 120 older adults, half of whom started a program of moderate aerobic exercise – just 45 minutes, three days a week, mostly walking. After a year, the MRI scans showed that for the aerobic group, the volume of their brains actually increased,” whereas people in “the control group lost about 1.5 percent of their brain volume.” The study results appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Related Links:

— “Exercise May Help People With Alzheimer’s Avoid Nursing Homes, “Brenda Goodman, HealthDay, April 15, 2013.

The York County (ME) Coast Star (4/14, Laurent) reported, “A study, published last month in the journal Pediatrics, suggests nearly 30 percent of those with childhood” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) “still have the condition as adults – often after discontinuing treatment.” According to the article, “patients usually present with six out of nine symptoms listed for the different types according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” psychiatrist David Schopick, MD explained. “Adult AD/HD symptoms may include: trouble focusing or concentrating, becoming easily bored, poor attention to details, careless mistakes, forgetfulness, disorganization, failure to complete tasks, low frustration tolerance and trouble coping with stress.”

Related Links:

— “ADHD can continue into adulthood, “Suzanne Laurent, Seacoast Online, April 14, 2013.

The AP (4/14, Crary) reported, “By the dozens, survivors of attempted suicide across the United States are volunteering to be part of a project by a Brooklyn-based photographer, Dese’Rae Stage, called ‘Live Through This’ – a collection of photographic portraits and personal accounts.” The AP added, “It’s one of several new initiatives transforming the nation’s suicide-prevention community as more survivors find the courage to speak out and more experts make efforts to learn from them.” In addition to the “Live Through This” effort, “there’s a new survivors task force, an array of blogs, some riveting YouTube clips, all with the common goal of stripping away anonymity, stigma and shame.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide Survivors Help to Shape Prevention Efforts, “David Crary, Associated Press, April 13, 2013.

In an editorial, the New York Times (4/12, Subscription Publication) encourages Judge Anita Brody of Philadelphia’s Federal District Court to allow over 200 grouped cases filed by over 4,000 retired National Football League players against the league to proceed. The lawsuits allege the NFL failed “to protect players from chronic risks of head injuries routinely inflicted in professional football games – and then willfully concealing those risks from players.” The Times notes a “an extensive study of brain samples from deceased football and hockey players, military veterans and others who suffered repeated hits to the head added to the mounting evidence of a link between head trauma and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., an incurable, degenerative disease leading to dementia and depression.” The editorial board concludes that following “years of debate in the volatile court of public opinion, the place to address and resolve these serious and important charges is in a steady and independent court of law.”

Related Links:

— “Brain Disease and the N.F.L., “The Editorial Board, The New York Times, April 11, 2013.

On its “Healthwatch” blog, The Hill (4/12, Viebeck) reports that the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations “is asking the Obama administration to assist its review of U.S. mental health policy by providing a comprehensive list of all programs and research projects that address the topic.” Reps. Tim Murphy (R-PA) and Diana DeGette (D-CO), who head the subcommittee, “wrote to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Wednesday as part of an effort to study and better coordinate the U.S. mental healthcare system following the Newtown, Conn., shooting late last year.” The Hill adds that “Murphy and DeGette requested that OMB provide, in addition to its list, an accounting of all federal funds devoted to mental health programs.”

Related Links:

— “Lawmakers seek full list of federal mental health programs, “Elise Viebeck, The Hill, April 11, 2013.

HealthDay (4/12, Preidt) reports, “US veterans who suffered major limb injuries in combat showed little improvement with mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the two years after receiving treatment for their wounds,” according to research presented yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. For the study, researchers “conducted phone interviews with nearly 300 veterans who suffered major combat-related limb injuries.” Notably, “at various points during the interview period, nearly 14 percent of the veterans reported generalized anxiety disorder, 14 percent reported depression and five percent had suicidal thoughts.” Almost half (46%) struggled with low-level PTSD, while another 12% said they suffered from higher-level PTSD.

Related Links:

— “Severely Injured Vets May Need Ongoing Emotional Care, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 11, 2013.

Medwire (4/11, Grasmo) reports that “study findings published in PLoS One reveal that over one-third of parents and step-parents who murder their children – known as filicide – have a mental disorder.” For the study, researchers analyzed “a national index of homicide perpetrators to identify 297 filicides and 45 filicides that were followed by suicides that occurred in England and Wales during 1997 through 2006.” Investigators found that “a history of mental illness was present in 40% of perpetrators, and this was more common in mothers than in fathers (66 vs 27%).”

Related Links:

— “Mental disorders prevalent among parents who commit filicide, “Ingrid Grasmo, Medwire News, April 10, 2013.

Medscape (4/11, Keller) reports, “Cannabis use not only increases the risk for schizophrenia but new research suggests it is associated with more severe schizophrenic psychosis,” according to research presented at EPA 2013: 21st European Congress of Psychiatry. After performing “a longitudinal study of 50,087 male Swedish army conscripts aged 18 to 19 years between 1969 and 1970,” researchers found that “schizophrenia patients with a history of cannabis use had longer hospital stays, a higher rate of hospital readmission, and a type of schizophrenia ‘that may be more severe than schizophrenia cases in general,’ according to study investigator Peter Allebeck, MD, PhD, professor of social medicine in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.”

According to the New York Times (4/10, Reynolds) “Well” blog, research recently published in the Journal of Aging Research suggests that “regular exercise can substantially improve memory, although different types of exercise seem to affect the brain quite differently.” In a small study of 86 elderly women between the ages of 70 and 80 who had mild cognitive impairment who were randomized to weight training, brisk walking, or simple stretching and toning exercises and then were evaluated six months later, researchers found that “women who had exercised, either by walking or weight training, performed better on almost all of the cognitive tests after six months than they had before.” Interestingly, “while both exercise groups improved almost equally on tests of spatial memory, the women who had walked showed greater gains in verbal memory than the women who had lifted weights.” Women who stretched and performed toning exercises scored worse on memory tests.

Related Links:

— “Getting a Brain Boost Through Exercise, “Gretchen Reynolds, The New York Times, April 10, 2013.

HealthDay (4/10, Preidt) reports, “Internet searches for information about mental illnesses follow seasonal patterns, which suggests that there may be a stronger association between mental disorders and changing seasons than previously believed,” according to a study published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. “Researchers analyzed data from Google searches for mental health information made in Australia and the United States from 2006 through 2010. The analysis revealed that the number of such searches in both countries was consistently higher in winter than in summer.”

Related Links:

— “Google Search Trends Suggest Mental Woes Vary by Seasons, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 10, 2013.