HealthDay (11/2, Reinberg) reports, “Some of the numbers are staggering: more than 75 Americans dead, thousands evacuated from their homes, millions left without power for days and billions of dollars in damage from ‘superstorm’ Sandy.” According to mental-health professionals, “the effect of all this sudden, violent loss on people’s psyches will be powerful. Not only those who suffered the loss of a loved one or a beloved home, but also people who just watched the constant storm coverage may be scared and unsettled, experts say.”

Psychiatrists Left Struggling To Connect With Patients. Psychiatric News (11/2) reports that according to Charles Ciolino, MD, chair of the New Jersey Psychiatric Association’s Disaster Preparedness Committee, “there will be a long period of rebuilding physically and psychologically”.

Related Links:

— “For Many, ‘Superstorm’ Sandy Could Take Toll on Mental Health, “Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, November 1, 2012.

The Washington Post (11/6, Butler) reports that “more than a dozen double-blind research trials on children’s diets — both from candy and chocolate and from natural sources — has failed to find any behavioral differences between those young people who consume sugar and those who don’t. That’s even true for kids with” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD). Pediatrician Ivor Horn, MD, MPH, of Children’s National Medical Center, explained that “environmental and social factors surrounding sugar-centric events or holidays may also contribute to the madness and a general uptick in a child’s activity level.” Other “experts have speculated that other ingredients in candy and sugary snacks, such as food dyes, artificial preservatives and other additives, may also play a role in hyperactivity, especially for certain children.”

Related Links:

— “Sugar may not be the only reason your kid is hyper after Halloween, “Carolyn Butler, The Washington Post, November 5, 2012.

Modern Healthcare (11/3, McKinney, Subscription Publication) reported, “Use of an Internet-based mental health management program may improve symptoms among patients with depression, according to a study in the journal Psychiatric Services.” For the study, “researchers used eCare for Moods, a 12-month-long management program that allows patients to submit data about their medication adherence, side effects, mood, daily functioning and other aspects of their care and access informational content using a Web-based interface.” Notably, “after two years, 43% of the participants in the eCare program were depression-free, compared with 30% of the patients who received the usual regimen of mental healthcare.” In an emailed new release, the American Psychiatric Association announced, “Completion of more education modules was positively associated with less severe depression.”

Related Links:

— “Online mental health management program shows benefits, “Maureen McKinney, Modern Healthcare, November 2, 2012.

Reuters (11/2, Grens) reported that only about 4.5 percent of patients with chronic pain, who are prescribed opioid-based prescription medications, become addicted to the medication, according to a study published in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Addiction. Researchers from the Cochrane Collaboration came to this conclusion after conducting a meta-analysis of 17 studies comprising more than 88,000 patients who were treated for non-cancer related chronic pain. Ten of the 17 studies provided the length of the treatment protocols, one of which was only a matter of days whereas the remaining nine ranged from three months to several years. Reuters pointed out that some experts questioned the whether the results are useful, considering the wide range of sources and treatment regimens.

Related Links:

— “Painkillers not as addictive as feared: study, “Kerry Grens,Reuters, November 2, 2012.

In the New York Times (11/3) “Well” blog, Pauline W. Chen, MD, “For almost three decades now, health care experts have been studying the psychological effects of natural disasters and have found that disasters…left significant, disabling and lasting psychological scars in their wake.” Chen added, “Most commonly and most immediately, the survivors suffered post-traumatic stress symptoms like recurrent nightmares, flashbacks, a hair-trigger temper and an emotional ‘numbing,’ much of which could be considered normal in the first couple of months after a disaster.” If symptoms did not abate, “or when other mood disorders like anxiety and depression appeared, mental health issues quickly became a leading cause of disability for survivors, further hampering other efforts at recovery.”

Related Links:

— “Easing the Trauma After the Storm, “Pauline W. Chen, The New York Times, November 2, 2012.

The Pittsburgh Business Times (11/2, Mamula, Subscription Publication) reported that new research from the University of Pittsburgh and the VA Pittsburgh Medical Center shows that “more than one in four older veterans in nursing homes were taking antipsychotic medications,” while 40 percent of those on the medications had no related diagnosis. That finding, lead author Walid Gellad said, shows that “VA is not immune” to the trend of overuse of such medications in nursing home settings. Gellad and colleagues “collected data on all veterans age 65 and older who were admitted for 90 or more days to one of the 133 VA Community Living Centers between January 2004 and June 2005.” The data suggested “veterans in dementia units had 66 percent greater odds of receiving an antipsychotic and residents with aggressive behavior had nearly three times greater odds of receiving an antipsychotic.”

Related Links:

— “Inappropriate drug use found at VA, “Kris B. Mamula, The Pittsburgh Business Times, November 2, 2012.

The New York Times (11/5, A15, Carey, Subscription Publication) reports, “The rate of suicide in the United States rose sharply during the first few years since the start of the recession,” according to a report published online Nov. 5 in The Lancet. After examining data on suicide and death rates collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “researchers found that the rate between 2008 and 2010 increased four times faster than it did in the eight years before the recession. … Without the increase in the rate, the total deaths from suicide each year in the United States would have been lower by about 1,500, the study” found.

“From 1997 to 2007, the rate of increase in suicides was 0.12 per 100,000 people, but from 2008 to 2010 it jumped to 0.51 per 100,000 people,” HealthDay (11/5, Reinberg) reports. The study authors “estimated that about 25 percent of these additional suicides can be blamed on rising unemployment.”

Related Links:

— “Increase Seen in U.S. Suicide Rate Since Recession, “Benedict Carey, New York Times, Nevember 4, 2012.

The Orlando (FL) Sentinel (11/2, Jameson) reports, “Getting regular exercise and drinking coffee have both been shown to reduce the risk of dementia in seniors, and two recent studies released Thursday help show why.” In one study, published in the November issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, researchers used PET scans to find that “typical caffeine doses result in a high A1 adenosine receptor occupancy,” which may explain why caffeine appears to be protective against neurodegenerative diseases.

Focusing on the second study, HealthDay (11/2, Reinberg) reports, “Older people who exercise regularly may reduce their risk of dementia and help keep their minds sharp,” according to a study published online Nov. 1 in the journal Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers “had more than 600 men and women in their 60s and 70s undergo brain scans at the start and end of the study to look for changes that indicate declining mental function. Almost two-thirds of the participants took exercise classes, walked or biked for 30 minutes a day three times a week.”

MedPage Today (11/2, Neale) reports, “Even after adjustment for white matter changes seen on MRI and history of stroke, those who met criteria for physical activity had significantly lower risks of developing any cognitive impairment, any dementia, and vascular dementia over a three-year period,” the study found. “The relationship between physical activity and vascular dementia remained significant after further adjustment for baseline cognitive function (HR 0.49, 95% CI 0.26 to 0.94), the researchers reported.” Important to note, however, is that “physical activity was not…related to Alzheimer’s disease risk.”

Related Links:

— “Exercise and coffee may ward off dementia, studies say,”Marni Jameson, Orlando Sentinel, November 1, 2012.

Medwire (11/2, Cowen) reports, “Caregiving strain is associated with depressive symptoms among family members of patients with bipolar disorder [BD],” according to astudy published in the November issue of the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. Researchers arrived at this conclusion after having “studied 149 male (n=55) and female (n=94) caregivers of patients enrolled in the Systemic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder — a national longitudinal study evaluating treatment effectiveness and outcomes in patients with the mood disorder.” Each caregiver was “evaluated for depression, caregiver burden (strain), and rumination using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), the Social Behavior Assessment Scale (SBAS), and a 10-item shortened form of the Ruminative Style Questionnaire (RSQ).”

Related Links:

— “Caregiver strain link to depression mediated by rumination,”Mark Cowen, Medwire News, November 02, 2012.

MedPage Today (11/1, Petrochko) reports, “Cancer survivors may be cured of their disease, but they are still more likely to report a poorer quality of physical and mental health than adults who have not had cancer,” according to a study published online Oct. 30 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention. Investigators found, “in a national survey on health-related quality of life, 24.5% of cancer survivors reported poor physical quality of life and 10.2% said they had poor mental quality of life.” This “compared with 10.2% and 5.9%, respectively, among adults with no history of cancer, a significant difference.”

Related Links:

— “Cancer Survivors Report Lower Quality of Life,”Cole Petrochko, MedPage Today, October 31, 2012.