The Baltimore Sun (7/5, Wenger) reports, “A dramatic change in how Maryland pays for substance abuse treatment programs is leaving some [care organizations] short on cash and displacing more than 200 drug and alcohol addicts, even as the state’s four-year transition to a new funding system has significantly increased the number of people getting help.” Now, “under the new system, the state will pay for more treatments through Medicaid reimbursements, a strategy that officials say will ultimately provide health care access to more Marylanders.” While “many addiction specialists agree that the move will eventually help more people…right now they’re trying to find ways to keep displaced clients in treatment” as “centers are facing the loss of millions of dollars in grants.”

Related Links:

— “Substance abuse funding change challenges some Md. providers, “Yvonne Wenger, The Baltimore Sun, July 4, 2012.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (6/30, Jones), psychiatrists at Veterans Affairs “hospitals in Milwaukee and Madison know the Fourth of July holiday is difficult for veterans, so they begin talking to their patients several weeks in advance to come up with plans to handle fireworks,” which can remind veterans of combat. For example, Michael McBride, MD, MS, a psychiatrist at the Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee, “increases medications during this time of year to help some of his patients get through Independence Day. He also discusses coping strategies such as wearing earplugs, using deep breathing techniques or staying inside during fireworks displays.”

Related Links:

— “For many veterans, July Fourth bombast rekindles fears, “Meg Jones, Journal Sentinel, June 30, 2012.

HealthDay (6/30, Salamon) reported, “Tests performed on a group of retired NFL players revealed that more than 40 percent suffered from problems such as depression and dementia,” according to a study presented Friday at the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) annual meeting. “Analyzing 34 ex-professional football players (average age 62) on benchmarks such as memory, reasoning, problem-solving and behavior, researchers from the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas at Dallas found that 20 tested normal while the rest suffered from depression, various deficits in memory/thinking or a combination of these issues. Twenty-six of the players also underwent MRI scans.”

Related Links:

— “Study of Retired NFL Players Finds Evidence of Brain Damage, “Maureen Salamon, HealthDay, June 29, 2012.

USA Today (7/2, Healy) reports, “Children who are spanked, hit, or pushed as a means of discipline may be at an increased risk of mental problems in adulthood — from mood and anxiety disorders to drug and alcohol abuse,” according to a study published today in the journal Pediatrics.

“Previous studies have tied physical or sexual abuse to mental illness, but the large-scale Canadian study looked at the effects of less severe corporal punishment that many parents use to discipline their children,” the New York Daily News (7/72, Kinstler, Conner) reports. “The researchers reported…that up to 7% of mental illnesses could be attributed to the punishment.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (7/2, Sathian) reports that “today’s study…polled nearly 35,000 adults over the age of 20 between 2004 and 2005. In face-to-face interviews, respondents were asked to recall from their childhood if they were hit, grabbed, pushed or experienced other physical punishment.” Sexual abuse or “‘severe physical abuse’ – defined as anything that left a mark or caused injury,” was excluded.

“After adjustment for sociodemographic factors and family dysfunction, harsh physical punishment was associated with an increased risk of most lifetime Axis I mental disorders,” MedPage Today (7/2, Smith) reports. “Specifically, the adjusted odds ratio for: major depression was 1.41 with a 99.9% confidence interval from 1.03 to 1.92; mania was 1.93 with a 99.9% confidence interval from 1.07 to 3.48; any mood disorder was 1.49 with a 99.9% confidence interval from 1.11 to 2.00; any anxiety disorder was 1.36 with a 99.9% confidence interval from 1.05 to 1.77; any alcohol abuse or dependence was 1.59 with a 99.9% confidence interval from 1.21 to 2.08,” and “any drug abuse or dependence was 1.53 with a 99.9% confidence interval from 1.06 to 2.20.” AFP (7/2, Sheridan) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “Study links physical punishment to later mental disorders, ” Michelle Healy, USA Today, July 2, 2012.

In the Time (6/28) “Battleland” blog, psychiatrist Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, made some recommendations how to deal “with the vexing problem of PTSD and suicide” among US troops. Among her recommendations was that “the American Psychiatric Association, and the larger mental-health community, consider anew changing the name of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) to PTSI (post-traumatic stress-injury)” and that “the Department of Defense conduct a careful review of all the policies that promote stigma (no anti-depressants allowed in submariners or aviators, the deployment limiting psychiatric conditions policy, security clearance procedures, etc). and decide, on a scientific basis, whether they are warranted.”

Related Links:

— “The War After the War, “Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, Battleland Time, June 28, 2012.

In a news release (6/28, pdf), the American Psychiatric Association issued a statement from its president, Dilip V. Jeste, MD, who pointed out the significance of the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including the individual mandate. Dr. Jeste stated, “The law is especially significant because, when fully implemented along with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, it will protect the rights of individuals with mental illnesses to have access to appropriate care.”

HealthDay (6/29, Doheny) reports that a new study appearing in Social Science & Medicine finds that “the more work-related stress parents experience, the more likely their children are to eat unhealthy meals.” According to HealthDay, the researchers found that “those mothers employed full time had fewer meals as a family, served more fast-food meals and encouraged their teens to eat healthy less often… The fathers’ only difference by employment status was that full-time workers had fewer hours of food preparation than those who worked part time or were not employed.”

Related Links:

— “Job Worries for Parents May Mean Poorer Nutrition for Kids, “Kathleen Doheny, HealthDay, June 28, 2012.

Medscape (6/29, Lowry) reports, “Good physical fitness at age 18 years is associated with a reduced risk for serious depression later in life,” according to a study involving some 1.1 million men in Sweden that was published online June 14 in the British Journal of Psychiatry. Notably, “after controlling for factors that included body mass index, conscription test center, and familial factors, the hazard ratio (HR) associated with lower cardiovascular [CV] fitness at age 18 for serious depression in adulthood was 1.96 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.71 – 2.23).” However, “there was no such association found for bipolar disorder (HR, 1.11; 95% CI, 0.84 – 1.47).”

The UK’s Telegraph (6/28, Adams) reports, “Researchers have discovered that teenagers who are ostracised at school are more likely to be at risk of developing heart disease and diabetes when they enter middle age.” And “girls appear much more susceptible to the ruthless social world of adolescence than boys, according to the Swedish study, which followed almost 900 students in the north of the country from 16 to 43.” It was published in the journal PLoS One. “The academics, from the universities of Umea and Stockholm, found those who had the worst time at school socially – being bullied, cast out orf isolating themselves – tended to be at the highest risk of poor health by their early 40s.”

Related Links:

— “Bullied girls ‘suffer poorer health in middle age’, “Stephen Adams, The Telegraph, June 28, 2012.

MedWire (6/28, Cowen) reports, “Results from a US study show that more than half of patients with bipolar disorder (BD) have a significant burden of comorbid medical illnesses.” The 264-patient study revealed that “medical comorbidity most commonly affected the musculoskeletal/integumentary (33%), the respiratory (27%), and the endocrinologic/metabolic (25%) systems, and the most common individual conditions were migraine (25%), history of head trauma with loss of consciousness (19%), and hypertension (16%).” In addition, investigators “found that 31% (n=87) of patients were overweight, with a body mass index (BMI) of 25.0-29.9 kg/m2, and 38% (n=105) were obese, with a BMI of more than 30.0 kg/m2.” The findings were presented earlier this month at the annual meeting of the New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit in Phoenix, Arizona.

Related Links:

— “High medical illness rates in bipolar disorder, “Mark Cowen, MedWire News, June 28, 2012.