Psychiatric News (11/11) reports that at the 2014 Interim Meeting of the American Medical Association House of Delegates, psychiatrists from the AMA Section Council on Psychiatry told delegates that “solitary confinement of juveniles in correctional settings is severely detrimental to adolescent health, with long-term consequences for development, and should be prohibited.”

During debate of a resolution opposing the use of solitary confinement, “some emergency and other physicians testified that seclusion of adults is necessary and unavoidable in certain emergency hospital settings, and physicians working in correctional facilities argued the same for adults in jails and prisons.” For their part, psychiatry council representatives “insisted that there should be a separate policy for juveniles, especially in correctional facilities.”

David Fassler, MD, alternate delegate from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, said, “The potential psychiatric consequences of prolonged seclusion include depression, anxiety, and psychosis,” the consequences for which “juveniles in particular are at risk.”

Related Links:

— “AMA Leaders Debate Benefits, Harm of Solitary Confinement,” Psychiatric News, November 10, 2014.

The Wall Street Journal (11/11, D3, Lukits, Subscription Publication) reports that according to the results of a 1,352-participant study published in the November issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, elderly participants who felt younger than their actual age in years had better scores on both cognitive and memory tests.

Related Links:

— “Feeling Younger May Help Memory as We Age,” Jason Schneider, Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2014.

TIME (11/7, Rayman) reports that according to “an analysis of more than 16,000 births by female veterans” published online Nov. 6 in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, “women with post-traumatic stress disorder are significantly more likely to give birth prematurely.”

HealthDay (11/7, Preidt) reports that researchers “found that having PTSD in the year before delivery increased the risk of spontaneous premature birth by 35 percent,” and that “recent PTSD” is tied to approximately “two additional premature births for every 100 deliveries.”

Related Links:

— “PTSD Raises Risk of Premature Birth, Study Says,” Noah Rayman, Time, November 6, 2014.

Medwire News (11/6, McDermid) reports that according to a study published online Oct. 29 in JAMA Psychiatry, there appears to be “an inverse association between people’s subjective social status (SSS) and the likelihood of them having a psychiatric disorder.” After examining data from 20 studies involving approximatley 56,000 individuals, researchers found that the “association was evident for all 16 mental disorders assessed, including bipolar disorder, and was independent of people’s objective social status, based on measures of income, education and occupation.” This finding led the study authors to surmise that “studies relying on objective measures of socioeconomic status may underestimate the size of the association between social circumstances and mental health.”

Related Links:

— “Low subjective social status linked to mental disorder risk,” Eleanor McDermid, Medwire News, November 6, 2014.

Medscape (11/5, Brooks) reports that three new studies of non-medication therapies for Alzheimer’s disease are being funded by research grants from the Alzheimer’s Association. One study will evaluate “the effects of a 12-week intervention of exercise or cognitive stimulation, or a combination of the two, for lowering the risk for cognitive decline and dementia in older adults showing signs of mild cognitive impairment.” A second study “will look at the impact of an eight-week aerobic interval training regimen on the brain and thinking abilities in people with type 2 diabetes.” The third study will focus “on the use of Skill-Building through Task-Oriented Motor Practice (STOMP) for improving daily life skills and delaying the decline of these skills in people with dementia.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)