The Boston Globe (10/19, Thielking) reports Boston is one of the many cities that is using dementia training programs “in an aggressive effort to create dozens of ‘dementia-friendly’ communities across the state.” The program gives participants an idea of what it feels like to be elderly and suffer from dementia, since 5.3 million American now have Alzheimer’s and “16 million are expected to have the disease by 2050.”

Related Links:

— “Efforts spread to aid dementia sufferers,” Megan Thielking, Boston Globe, October 18, 2015.

The Washington Post (10/17, Hicks, Craighill) reported a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll has found that “nearly 3 in 10 Marylanders say they have a close friend or family member who was or is addicted to opioids such as heroin and prescription pain pills.” The study highlights “the effect of a surge in opioid use that Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has described as a crisis and vowed to address.”

Related Links:

— “In Maryland, 3 in 10 people have known someone addicted to opioids,” Josh Hicks and Peyton M. Craighill, Washington Post, October 17, 2015.

The Hill (10/17, Sullivan) reported that 22 senators signed a letter calling on the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor to take “immediate and overdue action to implement and enforce” the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which “prevents health insurers from limiting mental health coverage more than they limit physical health coverage.”

Related Links:

— “Senators urge enforcement to protect mental health coverage,” Peter Sullivan, The Hill, October 16, 2015.

HealthDay (10/15, Dotinga) reports, “Wide-ranging suicide prevention funding appears to have successfully prevented suicide attempts among young people in certain areas of the” US, according to a study published online Oct. 14 in JAMA Psychiatry. After comparing “466 counties” that started using funding from the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Suicide Prevention Program “between 2006 and 2009 to more than 1,100 counties – similar overall – that didn’t receive funding,” researchers found that “the suicide prevention funding may have averted as many as 79,000 suicide attempts between 2008 and 2011.”

Medical Daily (10/15, Cara) points out, however, that funding from the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Suicide Prevention Program “didn’t appear to have any influence on the suicide attempt rates of people older than 23; nor was there a sustained longer-term difference in attempt rates.”

Related Links:

— “Youth Suicide Prevention Program Shows Promise,” Randy Dotinga, HealthDay, October 14, 2015.

In an opinion piece for USA Today (10/13), former American Psychiatric Association president Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, chair of psychiatry at Columbia University and New York Presbyterian Hospital, writes, “In the course of my career, I have seen many young patients whose education and lives were derailed by the onset of mental illness that was not adequately managed while in college.” Dr. Lieberman urges students and parents to “acknowledge the possibility that mental health care might be needed in the course [of] their college education, and make learning about it a priority.”

Related Links:

— “Reading, writing and mental health care: Column,” Jeffrey Lieberman, USA Today, October 12, 2015.