Reuters (5/2, Carroll) reports a study published in Health Psychology suggests “the stresses and emotional demands of caring for family members with dementia…can be offset by training that helps caregivers focus on the positives of their experience.” Researchers who led a “randomized, controlled trial” involving 170 dementia caregivers “showed that a six-session online training program produced modest improvements in caregiver anxiety and depression,” with participants in the intervention group experiencing “a 7 percent greater drop in depression symptoms and a 9 percent greater drop in anxiety symptoms compared with the control group.”

Related Links:

— “Happiness training may ease dementia caregivers’ anxiety, depression, “Linda Carroll, Reuters, May 2, 2019

The New York Times (5/2, Bakalar) reports, “Girls who have serious or repeated infections in childhood are at higher risk for developing eating disorders in adolescence,” researchers concluded after tracking “525,643 girls – every girl born in Denmark from 1989 through 2006” – and recording “all prescriptions that were filled for antibiotics and other anti-infective medications, as well as hospitalizations for infection, through 2012. There were 4,240 diagnoses of eating disorders during that time.” The findings were published online April 24 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Anti-Infective Drugs Tied to Eating Disorders, “Nicholas Bakalar, The New York Times, May 2, 2019

Stateline (5/1, Vestal) reports that it is “increasingly likely that someone you know has the opioid overdose rescue drug naloxone in their pocket or medicine cabinet,” and “in the last five years, at least 46 states and the District of Columbia enacted so-called good Samaritan laws, allowing private citizens to administer the overdose-reversal medication without legal liability.” But, Stateline notes, “a handful of states are going even further by requiring doctors to give or at least offer a prescription for the overdose rescue drug to patients taking high doses of opioid painkillers.”

Related Links:

— “New Naloxone Laws Seek to Prevent Opioid Overdoses, “Christine Vestal, Stateline, May 01, 2019

Recent reports show a small but growing number of people are taking very high doses of loperamide, an anti-diarrheal medication, in an attempt to self-manage opioid withdrawal or to achieve a euphoric high. At high doses, these individuals may be at risk of severe or fatal cardiac events. Learn more about identifying patients at risk of misusing loperamide at LoperamideSafety.org

Related Links:

— Understanding Loperamide Abuse

Bloomberg (4/30, Cortez) reports the Food and Drug Administration will now require a boxed warning on certain prescription sleeping medications, including Ambien (zolpidem), Lunesta (eszopiclone), and Sonata (zaleplon), advising patients about the risk of serious side effects that can lead to death. The article explains that the agency “said it had found 66 examples of patients who took the drugs and engaged in dangerous activities such as sleepwalking or driving while not fully awake, including 20 deaths linked to carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, fatal falls, hypothermia, car crashes and apparent suicide.”

CNN (4/30, Scutti) reports the boxed warning will notify “patients to possible serious or life-threatening behaviors that may result from taking these drugs.”

Related Links:

— “Sleeping-Pill Deaths Prompt FDA to Add Strict Warning for Drugs, “Michelle Cortez, Bloomberg, April 30, 2019