HealthDay (4/12, Preidt) reports that nearly “14 percent of” some 2,000 “US veterans surveyed during a two-year Veterans Affairs (VA) study reported having suicidal thoughts.” In addition, 65 percent of veterans surveyed “who reported suicidal thoughts…had never gotten any mental health treatment.” The findings were published online March 2 in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Study: Many Vets Struggle With Suicidal Thoughts, Need More Help From VA,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 12, 2016.

HealthDay (4/12, Preidt) reports, “Major and worsening depression may significantly increase seniors’ risk of dementia,” the findings of a study published online March 16 in JAMA Psychiatry suggest. Researchers arrived at this conclusion after following some 2,500 seniors in their seventies for about 11 years.

Related Links:

— “Severe Depression Linked to Dementia in Seniors,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 12, 2016.

USA Today (4/12, Horn) reports the World Health Organization released a study yesterday suggesting that “improving mental health care can have a huge economic payoff.” The findings of the WHO study reveal that “every US dollar invested in mental health treatment can quadruple returns in work productivity.”

The New York Times (4/13, Carey, Subscription Publication) reports the World Bank and the WHO are holding a conference in Washington this week of hundreds of physicians, aid groups, and government officials to begin an “ambitious” effort to push mental health “to the forefront of the international development agenda.” The conference comes as an international research team published a study Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry which found that for every dollar invested in treatment programs for depression and anxiety, those “programs would bring a return of $3 to $5 in recovered economic contributions and years of healthy life.”

Related Links:

— “WHO: Better mental health care means a better economy,” Marissa Horn, USA Today, April 12, 2016.

In “Health & Science,” the Washington Post (4/11, Solovitch) delves into compulsive hoarding, a condition that “affects up to six percent of the population, or 19 million Americans, and…has been found to run in families.” More people hoard compulsively than have obsessive-compulsive disorder, “the condition under which hoarding was listed until 2013 in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the bible of the American Psychiatric Association.” Hoarding is now listed as “a separate mental illness” in the DSM-5. Brain scan studies of people who hoard reveal “abnormally low activity in the anterior cingulate cortex.”

Related Links:

— “Hoarding is a serious disorder — and it’s only getting worse in the U.S.,” Sara Solovitch, Washington Post, April 11, 2016.

HealthDay (4/11, Preidt) reports, “Routine screening of emergency” department (ED) “patients for suicide risk might be an effective way to prevent it,” the findings of a study published in the April issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine suggest. After nurses at eight EDs “were trained to screen patients for three suicide risk factors: depression, suicidal thoughts and previous suicide attempts,” researchers found that “over five years, suicide screenings rose from 26 percent to 84 percent, and detection of patients at risk of suicide increased from nearly 3 percent to 5.7 percent.”

Related Links:

— “ER Screenings Could Help Prevent Suicide: Study,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 11, 2016.