Modern Healthcare (11/14, Kacik, Hudson, Subscription Publication) reports, “Medical associations, patient advocates, public health organizations and health systems are asking for federal and state help to address the escalating number of mental health patients seeking care at hospital emergency departments” (EDs). Currently, “patients are being held in” EDs “for as long as months as they await psychiatric beds.” As a result, “the system is cracking in a demonstration of the mental healthcare safety net’s systemic failings, the” American Psychiatric Association “and 30 other industry groups wrote in a letter” (PDF) “sent to the White House on” Nov. 7.

Related Links:

— “Mental health epidemic creates emergency department backlog “Alex Kacik, Modern Healthcare, November 14, 2022

Healio (11/11, Herpen) reported, “For adults in the U.K., preexisting neuropsychiatric conditions and having a prescription for a related treatment carried a significantly increased risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19 and other severe acute respiratory infections,” investigators concluded in a study that “utilized the QResearch database of English primary care records and created two separate longitudinal cohorts, one prepandemic (2015 to 2020) group of 11,134,789 adults…and one contemporary (2020 to 2021) group of 8,388,956 adults.” The findings were published online Nov. 9 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Preexisting neuropsychiatric conditions linked to higher risk for respiratory infections “Robert Herpen, MA, Healio, November 11, 2022

Medscape (11/11, Young, Subscription Publication) reported, “Dementia prevalence is dropping in the United States,” investigators concluded. In fact, “new data from the Health and Retirement Study…show that the prevalence of dementia among individuals aged 65 and older dropped from 12.2% in 2000 to 8.5% in 2016 – a 30.1% decrease.” Additionally, the study revealed “a substantial increase in the level of education between 2000 and 2016.” The study authors theorized that “the decline in dementia prevalence reflects larger socioeconomic changes in the United States as well as prevention strategies to reduce cardiovascular disease.” The findings were published online in PNAS.

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Healio (11/11, VanDewater) reported, “Depression was associated with a lower likelihood of having children and of having fewer children for adults in Finland,” investigators concluded in the findings of a study that included “106,725 people who had depression.” The findings were published online Oct. 22 ahead of print in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Related Links:

— “Depression associated with decreased odds of having children “Kalie VanDewater, Healio, November 11, 2022

The Washington Post (11/10, Cha) reports researchers in a study on SARS-CoV-2 reinfection “said a second, third or further infections can lead to health complications just as the first can.” The study published in Nature Medicine involved “an analysis of electronic medical records in the VA’s national health care database” and “found that patients with reinfections tended to have more complications in various organ systems both during their initial illness and longer term, and they were more likely to be diagnosed with long COVID than people who did not get another infection.” These findings also “applied regardless of people’s vaccination status or whether they were boosted.”

Reuters (11/10, Lapid) reports patients with reinfection “had a more than doubled risk of death and a more than tripled risk of hospitalization compared with those who were infected with COVID just once.” Also, they “had elevated risks for problems with lungs, heart, blood, kidneys, diabetes, mental health, bones and muscles, and neurological disorders.”

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)