Healio (10/17, Herpen) reports, “Nonadherence to treatment with buprenorphine is associated with an increased risk of opioid overdose as well as increased spending for healthcare among Medicare participants,” researchers concluded in a study that included “a total of 34,505 U.S. Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries…diagnosed with opioid use disorder who received at least one two-week period of continuous buprenorphine treatment between 2010 and 2017.” The findings were published online Oct. 5 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Buprenorphine treatment gaps linked to increased overdose risk, higher care spending “Robert Herpen, Healio, October 17, 2022

Healio (10/14, Herpen) reported, “In older adults with dementia, Black patients were less likely to receive a diagnosis than white patients, with the difference increasing over three years following symptom onset,” investigators concluded after conducting “a retrospective cohort study utilizing survey data from the 1995 to 2016 Health and Retirement Study…linked with Medicare fee-for-service claims.” The findings of the 3,435-older adult study were published online in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Related Links:

— “Diagnosis gap widens from symptom onset between Black, white patients “Robert Herpen, Healio, October 14, 2022

MedPage Today (10/15, George) reported, “Signs of brain impairment appeared as early as nine years before people received a diagnosis for Alzheimer’s or other dementia-related diseases,” investigators concluded in a study that “assessed baseline cognitive and functional measures in 2,778 participants who subsequently developed Alzheimer’s, 2,370 who developed Parkinson’s, 211 who developed frontotemporal dementia,” 133 “who developed progressive supranuclear palsy,” 40 “who developed dementia with Lewy bodies,” and “73 who developed multiple system atrophy.” Next, the study team “compared these individuals against baseline data from 493,735 Biobank controls who were not diagnosed later with a neurodegenerative diagnosis.” The findings were published online in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (10/14, Herpen) reported, “Those who received psychiatric care through a telehealth platform saw a greater level of remission in suicidal ideation after 12 weeks compared with those who did not receive similar care,” investigators concluded after conducting “a longitudinal observational study” that “utilized patient records…to include 8,581 U.S.-based adults (8,366 in the treatment group and 215 in the control group) seeking treatment for depression, anxiety or both, between October 2018 and April 2021.” The findings were published in the September issue of the journal JMIR Formative Research.

Related Links:

— “Use of telehealth platform linked to higher remission rate of suicidal ideation “Robert Herpen, Healio, October 14, 2022

MedPage Today (10/12, Firth) reports “suicides jumped 29% among adolescents ages 15 to 19 during the pandemic compared with prior years, according to” a “new edition of America’s Health Rankings Health of Women and Children Report from the United Health Foundation” that “captures 121 health measures based on the most recently available public health data from 30 different sources.” In addition, the report “captured trends related to women’s health,” finding that “across the country, the share of women reporting ‘frequent mental distress’ rose from 17% in 2017-2018 to 19.4% in 2019-2020 – an increase of 14%, or more than 1.2 million women.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)