In a press release (1/12, pdf), the American Psychiatric Association wrote, “On Wednesday, January 10th American Psychiatric Association President Dr. John Oldham, MD participated in a meeting led by First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House to reaffirm the APA’s pledge of active participation in the Joining Forces Campaign to support returning veterans and their families.

Dr. Oldham joined leaders of several national healthcare organizations along with the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration in declaring their commitment to the First Lady’s cause.”

The press release also pointed out, “The APA, which has been involved with the program for over a year, has played an important role in easing the transition for service members returning from combat, and for their families readjusting to having them home.”

The Asbury Park (NJ) Press (1/12, Ash) reports that in New Jersey, “As the ranks of psychiatrists dwindle, hospitals statewide are turning to telepsychiatry to screen emergency room patients during off-hours — weekday nights and weekends. Not because they want to, they say, but because it is the only way to get the job done.”

Currently, “of the 21 state-designated mental health screening centers in New Jersey — one in each county — 10 use telepsych services now, according to the state Department of Human Services.” Telepsychiatry is used in emergency departments to perform psychiatric evaluations of patients who may need to be hospitalized involuntarily, the article explains.

ABC World News (1/11, story 8, 2:25, Sawyer) broadcast, “First Lady Michelle Obama,” “says she still plans to stay on her mission and push for those causes she cares most about,” including “working with wounded Iraq and Afghanistan war vets. And today, she was in Richmond, Virginia, to unveil a new program that trains doctors and medical students to better treat and diagnosis those veterans.”

The AP (1/12) notes that on Wednesday, Mrs. Obama “told an audience at Virginia Commonwealth University that 105 US medical schools and 25 schools of osteopathic medicine are bolstering their efforts to train students in treating brain injuries,” post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), “and other mental-health issues affecting service members.”

According to the AP, the “initiative is part of the Joining Forces campaign, an effort” by the First Lady “and Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, to focus on issues that affect veterans and their families.” Also reporting this story are Bloomberg News (1/12, Brower), CNN (1/12), and CQ (1/12, Subscription Publication).

The Chicago Tribune /Premium Health News Service (1/11) discussed compulsive hoarding, a condition in which people acquire and accumulate “objects of dubious value (to others) in such large and disorderly quantities that their living space is filled and normal use of the home becomes dangerous or impossible.”

Now, “mental health professionals are…taking a fresh look at the problem and have proposed making ‘hoarding disorder’ a distinct category in the diagnostic manual used by psychiatrists,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association. “Until now, hoarding has been classified psychiatrically as a symptom affecting up to 20 percent of people who have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).”

However, “more than 80 percent of hoarders lack the compulsions and repetitive behaviors that characterize OCD, and sometimes hoarding becomes a problem for a person with no psychiatric illness (as currently defined) or psychiatric history.”

The Hill (1/10, Pecquet) “Healthwatch” blog reported, “‘The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) one year ago in Tucson,” Arizona, “sparked a ‘hue and cry about mental health,’ but little progress on the issue’ has been made,” said Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-CA), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus, in an interview with The Hill.

Napolitano “in particular said she regrets that her legislation to fund mental health services in public schools went nowhere. The Mental Health in Schools Act would have authorized $200 million in competitive grants to provide mental health professionals in 200 or so public schools, but never got a committee hearing.”

The blog entry points out, however, that the congresswoman “led a letter (pdf) to House leaders that helped pare down cuts to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the omnibus spending bill from $212 million to just $33 million, preventing $179 million in cuts.”