Fox News (7/19, Carstensen) reports that “a new randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial suggests” hormone “therapy does not impact mental skills like verbal memory…regardless of when an individual begins taking estradiol after menopause.”

Related Links:

— “Hormone therapy has no effect on verbal memory after menopause, study suggests,” Melinda Carstensen, Fox News, July 19, 2016.

HealthDay (7/18, Dotinga) reports researchers found that certain types of hits to high school football players’ heads are especially damaging to players, according to a new study published in Pediatrics. The researchers reviewed data collected from devices inside football helmets and found that hits to the head that were preceded by running a long distance as well as hits caused by other players were especially damaging, according to University of Georgia assistant professor Julianne Schmidt, the study’s author.

Related Links:

— “Concussion Study Shows Player-to-Player Hits Most Damaging,” Randy Dotinga, HealthDay, July 18, 2016.

The Washington Post (7/18, Hurley) reports that the Food and Drug Administration has concluded “that for carefully selected patients with profound depression, the benefits of electroconvulsive therapy…outweigh the risks of possible memory loss caused by its use.”

The FDA “is proposing to downgrade” ECT from Class III to Class II “for those whose depression has not responded to other treatments or is so severe that they need the kind of rapid response that only ECT can provide.”

However, the FDA “said that too few randomized trials have been published to justify a Class II designation” for other medical conditions like catatonia.

Related Links:

— “FDA: Electroshock has risks but is useful to combat severe depression,” Dan Hurley, Washington Post, July 19, 2016.

In a patient advice column in US News & World Report (7/15), psychiatrist and American Psychiatric Association (APA) past president Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, wrote that over the past five decades, “progress in science and technology…has dramatically changed the scientific basis and therapeutic capability of psychiatry.”

These days, “the greatest hindrance to effective care is not a gap in medical knowledge or a shortcoming in effective treatments, but the enduring social stigma of mental illness and the understandable – but no longer warranted – lack of confidence in the competence of psychiatrists.” Patients needing a referral to a psychiatrist should start with their own primary care physician, but district branches of the APA can also help patients “find a well-trained a competent psychiatrist.”

Related Links:

— “When Should You See a Shrink?,” Jeffrey Lieberman, US News & World Report, July 15, 2016.

The New York Times (7/16, Subscription Publication) editorializes that the suicide rate for American veterans constitutes a “national emergency,” citing the 7,403 veteran suicides in 2014 alone, and says the VA’s safety net – its Veterans Crisis Line – is “badly frayed.” The Times argues that the only real solution is to give the VA a serious overhaul aimed at providing greater access to mental health resources and a “well-run crisis center,” but the paper is not optimistic, saying numerous reform plans have been put forth in the past but “every year brings new failures.”

Related Links:

— “For Suicidal Veterans, a Frayed Lifeline,” THE EDITORIAL BOARD, New York Times, July 16, 2016.