NBC News (3/6, Silva , Bendix ) reports, “Desperate patients around the country have been forced to choose between paying out of pocket for essential medications or forgoing them entirely as the aftermath of a cyberattack on a major health care company stretches into its third week.” Since Change Healthcare “detected the attack on” February 21, “pharmacies, doctors offices and patients say their lives and work have been upended due to widespread outages in systems commonly used for medical billing and insurance claims.” American Medical Association President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said, “Anything that requires interaction between health plans, a pharmacy, a facility, an office has been disrupted. … That has far-reaching implications, whether you’re on routine, standard medications, whether you rely on a rebate program from a pharmaceutical company, whether you’re just trying to get clearance to have routine elective surgery.”

Related Links:

— “Patients struggle to get lifesaving medication after cyberattack on a major health care company,”Daniella Silva and Aria Bendix, NBC News, March 6, 2024

MedPage Today (3/6, Kneisel) reports, “Pediatric atopic dermatitis was associated with increased risks of learning and memory difficulties, especially in kids with comorbid neurodevelopmental disorders, a cross-sectional study suggested.” According to “a weighted sample of over 69 million children, those with atopic dermatitis were more likely to experience learning difficulties compared with kids without the condition (10.8% vs 5.9%, P<0.001), along with memory difficulties (11.1% vs 5.8%, P<0.001), reported” researchers in JAMA Dermatology. Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (3/6, George ) reports, “Dementia was more common in people with essential tremor than in the general population, a prospective cohort study found.” Investigators found that “over 5 years, the cumulative prevalence of dementia was 18.5% and the average annual conversion rate of mild cognitive impairment to dementia was 12.2%.” Those “rates were three times higher than those in the general population and approximately one-half the magnitude of those reported in Parkinson’s disease.” The findings are scheduled to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting.

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MedPage Today (3/6, DePeau-Wilson ) reports, “Intravenous esketamine given during and after C-section diminished postpartum depression (PPD) symptoms early after birth, a randomized controlled trial in China showed.” Investigators found that “women who received IV esketamine had a significantly lower prevalence of PPD symptoms 7 days after birth compared with those who didn’t get the drug.” But, “there were no differences in PPD symptoms between groups at days 14, 28, or 42 after birth.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (3/6, Thompson ) reports that “a new study says some women are at more risk than others for menopause-linked mental health issues, and many escape them altogether.” Researchers found that “there’s no evidence that menopause causes a universal rise in risk for mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or psychosis.” Rather, “certain groups of women are more likely to have mental health problems during menopause – those with previous depression or depressive symptoms, those whose sleep is disturbed by nighttime hot flashes, and those who had a stressful life event around the time of menopause.” The findings were published in The Lancet.

Psychiatric News (3/6) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “Some Women Escape the Mental Health Effects of Menopause: Study,”Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, March 6, 2024