MedPage Today (8/4, George) reports, “Blood biomarkers may change how Alzheimer’s disease is diagnosed but aren’t ready for widespread use in primary care yet,” investigators concluded while presenting “the Alzheimer’s Association’s appropriate use recommendations for blood biomarkers at the 2022 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.” For that reason, “the Alzheimer’s Association working group of clinicians and researchers did not recommend blood-based biomarkers for population risk screening or as direct-to-consumer tests at this time.” A review article published online in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia discusses blood-based biomarkers.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

According to Kaiser Health News (8/4, Houghton), the US “criminal justice system has long been a revolving door for defendants with a mental illness.” What’s more, “the national nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center, which advocates to make treatment for a severe mental illness more accessible, found that as of 2017, 21 states made little-to-no effort to create programs that treat those defendants,” a failure that “leaves individuals without stability, and some go on to hurt themselves or others.”

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— “When Mental Illness Leads to Dropped Charges, Patients Often Go Without Stabilizing Care “Katheryn Houghton, Kaiser Health News, August 4, 2022

HealthDay (8/3, Murphy) reports a study “finds that elementary school kids who get less than nine hours of sleep each night show significant differences in some brain regions responsible for memory, intelligence and well-being compared to those who get the advised nine to 12 hours’ sleep.” According to the findings published online in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, “these differences were associated with more severe mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety and impulsive behavior, in those who got too little sleep,” as well as “difficulties with memory, problem solving and decision.

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— “Too Little Sleep May Harm Young Kids’ Brains “Sydney Murphy, HealthDay, August 3, 2022

Psychiatric News (8/3) reports, “The number of individuals prescribed buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic increased steadily after the federal government instituted policies that allowed for greater use of telehealth,” investigators concluded after using “data from the Veterans Health Administration…to compare trends in buprenorphine treatment before and after the COVID-19 policy changes were implemented in March 2020.” The study team “compared the number of patients receiving buprenorphine from March 2019 to February 2020 (before policy changes) with those receiving buprenorphine from March 2020 to February 2021 (after policy changes).” The findings were published online July 28 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

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— “Rapid Shift to Telehealth During Pandemic Helped Patients With OUD Access Buprenorphine, Psychiatric News, August 3, 2022

MedPage Today (8/3, DePeau-Wilson) reports, “Environmental risk factors may play a larger role than genetic factors in the development of psychotic experiences in adolescents,” investigators concluded. The study revealed that “among over 11,000 twin pairs, the relative contribution of genetic influences to cognitive disorganization was 47% in those with no exposure to environmental risk factors – such as bullying, dependent life events, cannabis use, tobacco use, or low birth weight – compared with 32% in those with these exposures.” The findings were published online Aug. 3 in JAMA Psychiatry.

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