HealthDay (3/10, Mozes) reports research indicates that as COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns keep “people from regular exercise,” rates of depression have begun to rise. Investigators arrived at this conclusion “based on multiple mental health surveys conducted among three successive groups of University of Pittsburgh students, totaling nearly 700 in all.” The findings were published online March 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Related Links:

— “As Lockdowns Cut Into Exercise Time, Depression Rates Are Rising “Alan Mozes, HealthDay, March 10, 2021

Healio (3/10, Gramigna) reports, “Benzodiazepine or Z-drug treatment was linked to increased risk for nonfatal drug-related poisoning among patients with opioid use disorder,” researchers concluded after analyzing “prescription claims of 23,036 individuals aged 12 to 64 years with opioid use disorder who experienced drug-related poisoning and who had buprenorphine prescriptions and claims data in the IBM MarketScan databases between 2006 and 2016.” The findings of the “case-crossover analysis” were published online March 3 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Buprenorphine treatment may reduce benzodiazepine risks for those with opioid use disorder “Joe Gramigna, Healio, March 10, 2021

MedPage Today (3/9, Walsh) reports, “The presence of depression or anxiety among patients with psoriatic arthritis [PsA] was associated with a diminished likelihood of achieving a state of minimal disease activity, regardless of the method used to diagnose depression/anxiety,” investigators concluded. The findings of the 743-patient study were published online in Arthritis Care & Research.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (3/9, Marabito) reports, “Gait variability – or the stride-to-stride fluctuations in distance and time when moving – served as a marker of cognitive-cortical dysfunction,” investigators concluded after examining “gait and cognitive performance in 500 older adults with different neurodegenerative and cognitive conditions, including subjective cognitive impairment, Parkinson’s disease,” mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson’s with mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson’s with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, “Lewy body dementia and frontotemporal dementia, in addition to a control group of adults with normal cognitive function.” The findingswere published online in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

Related Links:

— “Gait variability serves as indicator of cognitive dysfunction in AD, other diseases “Maria Marabito, Healio, March 9, 2021

MedPage Today (3/9, George) reports, “Of nearly 1.2 million Medicare beneficiaries with dementia, 13.9% were prescribed CNS-active polypharmacy, defined as more than 30 days of overlap for at least three drugs that were antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-epileptics, benzodiazepines, non-benzodiazepine receptor agonist hypnotics, or opioids,” investigators concluded. What’s more, “gabapentin (Neurontin) – a drug approved for seizures, nerve pain, and restless legs syndrome that’s frequently used for off-label indications – was the most common medication and was associated with 33% of polypharmacy-days,” the study revealed. Nearly “all (92%) polypharmacy-days included an antidepressant. About half (47.1%) included an antipsychotic, 40.7% included a benzodiazepine, and 32.3% included an opioid,” with “the most common medication class combination…an antidepressant, an anti-epileptic, and an antipsychotic, which represented 12.9% of polypharmacy-days.” The findings The findings were published in the March 9 issue of JAMA.

Psychiatric News (3/9) reports investigators arrived at these conclusions after analyzing “data on Medicare beneficiaries with dementia who had Part D prescription drug coverage on January 1, 2018.” Not included in the study were people “living in long-stay nursing homes.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)