The New York Times (8/25, Barry) reported, “Use of mental healthcare increased substantially during the coronavirus pandemic, as teletherapy lowered barriers to regular visits, according to a large study of insurance claims published” online Aug. 25 in a research letter in JAMA Health Forum. The study revealed that “from March 2020 to August 2022, mental health visits increased by 39 percent, and spending increased by 54 percent.” Additionally, the “examination of 1,554,895 claims for clinician visits…identified a tenfold increase in the use of telehealth.” This “rise in use of mental health services reflects both receding stigma and a lowering of practical barriers to mental health visits, said” Robert L. Trestman, PhD, MD, “chairman of the American Psychiatric Association’s council on healthcare systems and financing.”

Psychiatric News (8/25) quoted the study’s authors, who concluded, “These findings suggest that telehealth utilization for mental health services remains persistent and elevated.” But, should “this increased utilization” affect “spending, insurers may begin rejecting the new status quo,” a concern that “is particularly relevant when considered against the backdrop of telehealth policies that expired alongside the national [public health emergency] declaration.”

HCPlive (8/25, Kunzmann) also covered the study.

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— “Mental Health Spending Surged During the Pandemic,”Ellen Barry, The New York Times , August 26, 2023

MedPage Today (8/24, George) reports, “A novel 14-year risk score helped identify people from age 50 onward at risk for all-cause dementia, a large U.K. study” revealed. The “U.K. Biobank Dementia Risk Score (UKBDRS), was developed and validated in two U.K. cohorts.” Included in the UKBDRS are “11 predictive variables: age, education, parental history of dementia, material deprivation, history of diabetes, stroke, depression, hypertension, high cholesterol, household occupancy (living alone), and sex.” The findingswere published online in BMJ Mental Health.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (8/23, George) reports, “High-performance brain-computer interfaces…decoded brain activity into speech faster, more accurately, and with a bigger vocabulary than existing technologies, two early trials…showed.” Researchers found “in the BrainGate2 study, speech-to-text BCI that recorded activity from intracortical microelectrode arrays…decoded the speech of a woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis…at 62 words per minute, more than 3 times faster than the previous record.” Meanwhile, “in the BRAVO study,” investigators “reported success in three modalities – text, speech audio, and facial-avatar animation – using high-density surface recordings of the speech cortex.” MedPage Today adds, “Decoding the text of a woman with a brainstem stroke reached a median rate of 78 words per minute, and the participant was able to ‘speak’ through a digital avatar with software that simulated facial movements.” The findings were published in Nature.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Psychiatric News (8/23) reports, “Youth in the foster care system are more likely to be prescribed two or more psychiatric medications than other youth covered by Medicaid,” investigators in a study that “included 719,908 youth in foster care and 31,473,608 youth covered by Medicaid who were not in foster care.” The findingswere published online Aug. 21 in a research letter in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

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— “Youth in Foster Care More Likely Than Peers to Be Prescribed Multiple Psychiatric Medications, Psychiatric News , August 23, 2023

Healio (8/22, Leiser) reported, “Anxiety and depression are prevalent psychiatric comorbidities among individuals with hemophilia, according to study results.” The research “included 90 patients who underwent screening for anxiety and depression during annual clinic visits.” Researchers found that “three-quarters…of patients met criteria for significant anxiety symptoms and one-quarter…met criteria for significant depressive symptoms.” The findings were published in The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine.

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— “Anxiety, depression prevalent among people with hemophilia,”Mark Leiser, Healio, August 22, 2023