The Washington Post (12/3, Wan) reports the COVID-19 “pandemic has pushed America’s 911 system and emergency responders to a breaking point, with ambulance operators exhausted and their services financially strained.” In fact, the situation “has grown so dire that the American Ambulance Association recently begged the Department of Health and Human Services for emergency funding of $2.62 billion in a letter.”

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (12/3, Mundell) reports, “For people struggling with drug addiction, 2020 has triggered a big rise in emergency” department “visits for cardiac arrest tied to drug overdoses,” investigators concluded “based on data involving 80% of emergency medical services (EMS) ‘activations’ across the” US. After analyzing “data on nearly 26 million EMS calls in 2020,” researchers found that overdose-related “cardiac arrests reached a peak in May, when lockdowns began to really take hold across the” US.

MedPage Today (12/3, Hlavinka) reports, “As of Oct. 31, 2020, all but nine U.S. states had reported increases in opioid-related mortality, according to the American Medical Association.” Investigators posited that “the pandemic may have disrupted the supply of narcotics for some patients, leading them to consume drugs that have traces of fentanyl or other substances triggering an overdose.” In addition, “the psychological and financial tolls of the pandemic may also be driving people to use substances more often.” The findingswere published online Dec. 3 in a research letter in JAMA Psychiatry.

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— “Pandemic Is Driving U.S. Surge in Cardiac Arrests Tied to Overdose ” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, December 3, 2020

Healio (12/2, Miller) reports, “Patients with a history of traumatic brain injury [TBI] experienced the clinical onset of Alzheimer’s disease several years earlier than those without TBI,” researchers concluded after analyzing “241 amyloid positron emission tomography scans from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative public database to look for differences in standardized uptake value ratio, cortical morphometry and neuropsychological assessments.” The study revealed that “a history of TBI was associated with ‘higher amyloid deposition and cognitive deficit’ in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.” The findings were presented at the virtual Alzheimer’s Association International Conference Neuroscience Next.

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— “TBI ‘significantly fast-forwards’ clinical onset of Alzheimer’s disease “Janel Miller, Healio, December 2, 2020

In an op-ed for USA Today (12/2, Fialk, Contributor), Amanda Fialk, “a licensed clinical social worker and partner and chief of clinical services at The Dorm, a young adult mental health treatment community,” writes, “Last month, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced the pilot of a new program that would end the city’s de facto police response to mental health emergencies.” Under the program, the New York City “health department and hospitals will help train new mental health teams and provide case conferencing,” and “mental health professionals will be the responders for a person in crisis.” She observes, “According to the American Psychiatric Association, most people with mental illness are ‘not violent, not criminal and not dangerous.’” Fialk believes the initiative “will allow New Yorkers, and perhaps the entire country, to reimagine how to address the mental and physical safety of those who are frequently put in danger by insufficiently trained officers.”

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— “Cops shouldn’t be first at scene in mental health crises. NYC pilot program needed nationwide “Amanda Fialk, USA Today, December 2, 2020

Psychiatric News (12/1) reports research “highlights the need to educate women with serious mental illness (SMI) about the risks of” HIV/AIDS and HPV. After asking “89 women with SMI receiving outpatient care at a public mental health center in Augusta, Ga., to complete HIV and HPV questionnaires,” researchers then compared “the responses of women with SMI…with those of women in the general population (357 responded to an HIV questionnaire; 413 to an HPV questionnaire).” The study revealed that “women with SMI on average answered 64% of the answers correct on the HIV Knowledge Questionnaire.” What’s more, the women with SMI “knew significantly less about HPV compared with HIV, answering 55% of HPV general knowledge, 51% of HPV vaccination, and 40% of HPV testing questions correctly.” The findings were published online Aug. 1 as a research letter in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

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— “Report Highlights Need to Educate Women With SMI About Risks of HIV, Other STDs, Psychiatric News, December 1, 2020