The Minneapolis Star Tribune (4/8, Olson) reports that “new Mayo Clinic research this month has yielded important insights on ‘avoidance’ behaviors, showing they predict which children are more likely to suffer severe anxiety later on.” For the study, “Mayo researchers asked parents how their children responded to challenges.” One “year later, they found higher anxiety in kids whose parents said they tended to avoid things that scared them.”

Related Links:

— “Mayo Clinic: For kids, avoiding risks can be risky, “Jeremy Olson, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 8, 2013.

HealthDay (4/6, Gardner) reported, “According to a recent study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, the link between prison time and mental illness is a two-way street.” Even though “many incarcerated people exhibit such problems as impulse control disorders – which normally first appear in childhood or adolescence – before they enter the correctional system, incarceration itself seems to cause major depression.” This finding “may help explain why so many inmates have trouble re-entering society when they are released, said the authors of the study,” which examined data on some 5,700 people.

Related Links:

— “Mental Illness a Frequent Cell Mate for Those Behind Bars, “Amanda Gardner, HealthDay, April 5, 2013.

HealthDay (4/6, Preidt) reported, “Many American adults who work and volunteer with young people believe that children and teens have limited or no access to mental health care,” according to a survey “conducted by the University of Michigan-based National Voices Project, which was created to assess disparities in children’s health, education and economic opportunities at the community level, through the input of paid adults or volunteers who work on behalf of children.” Notably, “more than half of the respondents said there was ‘lots of availability’ for teens to have hospital care (55 percent) and primary care (56 percent), but only 30 percent said the same was true for mental health care.” Responses were similar regarding availability of mental healthcare for kids.

Related Links:

— “Mental Health Care Lacking for Kids, Advocates Say, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 5, 2013.

In continuing coverage, the CBS Evening News (4/4, story 6, 2:35, Pelley) reported that a study (4/4) published April 4 in “the New England Journal of Medicine says nearly 15% of Americans over the age of 70 have dementia, and the yearly cost caring for them can run $70,000.”

The CBS News (4/5, LaPook) website focuses entirely on the impact Alzheimer’s and dementia care has on families.

CNN Money (4/5, Isidore) reports that the study “puts the cost of treating Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia at $109 billion, making it more expensive to society than either cancer or heart disease.” In addition, the study “estimates that costs will more than double in the next 27 years, reaching $259 billion by 2040. The same study puts the estimated cost of treating heart disease at $102 billion, and cancer treatment at $77 billion.”

Psychiatric News (4/5) reports, “Brent Forester, MD, chair of the APA Council on Geriatric Psychiatry, told Psychiatric News that the RAND study ‘points out the staggering economic toll that Alzheimer’s disease takes on individuals with dementia, their families ,and the national economy. If we do not find effective prevention methods or treatments that meaningfully slow disease progression, the costs of dementia care will cripple our health care system.'” Forester added, “Collaborations between academia, industry, and the federal government are required to accelerate our focus on developing effective therapies for prevention and early intervention for at risk individuals.”

Related Links:

— “The high costs of caring for someone with dementia, “Jonathan LaPook, CBS Evening News, April 4, 2013.

Reuters (4/4, Doyle) reported that according to a study published online March 28 in the journal Addiction, middle-school and adolescent children of parents taking part in military deployments have an increased likelihood of binge drinking or abusing prescription medications. Researchers arrived at this conclusion after examining data on 1,700 children who had deployed parents and 57,000 youngsters whose parents were not militarily deployed. The study is just a snapshot of behavior in 2010. It did not follow the kids after their parents returned from deployment, nor did it examine the youngsters’ behavior prior to parental deployment.

Related Links:

— “Drinking, drugs more common for kids of deployed, “Kathryn Doyle, Reuters, April 3, 2013.