NIMH Awards $16M Grant To Study Genetics Of Schizophrenia, BD

The Imperial Valley (CA) News (9/29, Trinidad) reports that “a multi-institutional team of researchers studying schizophrenia and bipolar disorder [BD] has been awarded a $16 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to create the most extensive genetic resource to date for these two devastating psychiatric disorders, using data assembled by the University of Southern California (USC).”

The “four-year award…will help fund a project titled: ‘Whole Genome Sequencing of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder in the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort (GPC).’” The goal of the study is to “sequence total genomic DNA from 10,000 or more ethnically diverse individuals from the GPC, split evenly among schizophrenia cases, bipolar disorder cases and psychiatrically normal controls.”

Related Links:

— “National research team awarded $16M NIH grant to study genetics of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder,” Alison Trinidad, Imperial Valley News, September 28, 2014.

Review: CBT May Be Better Treatment Option For Social Phobia In Teens

HealthDay (9/27, Norton) reported that according to a paper published online Sept. 26 in The Lancet Psychiatry, researchers reviewed 101 clinical studies and found that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) appears to be the “better first option” for the treatment of social phobia in teens instead of antidepressant medications. The piece also noted that “an estimated 15 million US adults have social anxiety disorder, according to the US National Institutes of Health.” TIME (9/27, Oaklander) also covered the story.

Related Links:

— “Behavioral Therapy Deemed Best for Social Phobia,” Amy Norton, HealthDay, September 26, 2014.

Report: Many Pastors Not Offering Help To People With Mental Illness

Medscape (9/26, Brauser) reports that according to a report released by LifeWay Research, even though people “with mental illness often first seek guidance from their church, many pastors do not offer help.” Researchers arrived at that conclusion after surveying “1000 senior Protestant pastors, more than 300 individuals with a mental illness diagnosis, and 207 family members of those with an acute psychiatric illness.”

When asked for comment by Medscape, Annelle Primm, MD, MPH, deputy medical director for the American Psychiatric Association (APA), said, “The faith community is an important partner and an important vehicle for people to recognize they have an illness that needs help from a psychiatrist or other mental health professional.”

Dr. Primm, who was not involved in the research, also “noted that, unfortunately, there have been barriers and taboos to mental health–seeking that are ‘being illuminated because of studies like these.’”

Related Links:

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Community Health Centers Treating More Underinsured Patients Under ACA.

Modern Healthcare (9/25, Dickson, Subscription Publication) reports that many community health centers find themselves providing low-cost services to people who purchased “bronze” level health insurance plans through Affordable Care Act exchanges. Low income individuals who hold such bare-bones health plans often find themselves unable to pay the full cost of coverage in the face of bronze plans’ high deductibles and co-pays.

The situation is seen as indicitive of a larger problem in the post-ACA world. “With the Affordable Care Act, while the number of uninsured may be dropping, there’s a new challenge in that there is now a huge cadre of underinsured people,” said Sara Rosenbaum, The George Washington University’s health policy chair.

Related Links:

ACCOUNT REQUIRED — “Underinsured ACA enrollees strain community health centers,” Virgil Dickson, Modern Healthcare, September 25, 2014.

Study: Most US Kids With AD/HD Not Getting Any Behavioral Counseling

Reuters (9/26, Doyle) reports that according to a study published online Sept. 22 in JAMA Pediatrics, the majority of US children who are on medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) are not undergoing any sort of behavioral counseling.

HealthDay (9/26, Thompson) reports that the findings “raise concerns that doctors may just be prescribing pills for behavior problems, rather than targeting kids’ specific difficulties through judicious use of medication and therapy, said lead author Dr. Walid Gellad, an adjunct scientist at RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization.”

In arriving at the study’s conclusions, investigators “combed through a commercial insurance claims database to identify more than 300,000 children aged 17 or younger who filled a prescription for AD/HD medication in 2010,” then cross-checked to determine if the youngsters had also gotten any behavioral counseling that year.

Related Links:

— “One in four kids on ADHD meds gets therapy too,” Kathryn Doyle, Reuters, September 25, 2014.

Veteran Suicides Remain Daunting Problem As VA Struggles To Improve Care

The Connecticut Mirror (9/25, Radelat) introduces the alarming trend of veteran suicide through personal stories. The article goes on to cite 22 national veteran suicides daily, with concerns of under-reporting due to stigmatization. Though Connecticut has one of the lowest rates at 28.8 per 100,000, compared to the national rate of 35.9, its veterans still commit suicide twice as frequently as non-veterans.

The article cites criticisms of VA healthcare, including mental healthcare’s wait times and the cycling of counselors. A VA audit in May found average wait times of four days at West Haven, 28 days at Waterbury, and 33 at Winsted. Maureen Pasko, suicide prevention coordinator with the West Haven VA hospital, said caregivers “only capture 50% of what is going.”

The article closes citing complaints of other suicide victims’ families and calls for overhaul of the VA healthcare system.

Related Links:

— “SUICIDE BY VETERANS REMAINS A DAUNTING PROBLEM AS VA STRUGGLES TO IMPROVE CARE,” Ana Radelat, Connecticut Mirror, September 24, 2014.

Early Memory Lapses Associated With Tripled Risk Of Dementia, Alzheimer’s

The Los Angeles Times (9/25, Healy) “Science Now” blog reports that according to a study published online Sept. 24 in the journal Neurology, “after the age of 60, ‘cognitive complainers’ – people who say they have noticed mental slippage – are more likely than those who do not complain of such changes to develop mild cognitive impairment, and to have Alzheimer’s-like plaques and tangles in their brains upon death even when dementia was never diagnosed.”

Related Links:

— “Cognitive complaints in the elderly are often dementia harbingers,” Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2014.

Increased Police Use Of Crisis Intervention Tactics Has Caused Shortage Of Psychiatric Services

USA Today (9/23, Penzenstadler) reports that police agencies across the country, in embracing the Memphis Model, which “aims to de-escalate and divert people suffering a mental health crisis to services instead of jail,” are now facing “full hospitals and a shortage of psychiatric resources.”

Michele Saunders, the crisis intervention team coordinator for the state of Florida, says that in some ways this is a “good problem” because “a greater number get diverted from jail, and that increases the number into the treatment system.”

Related Links:

— “Police crisis system taxes psychiatric resources,” Nick Penzenstadler, USA Today, September 23, 2014.

Study Says Chronic Stress From Even Minor Events Might Be Deadly

NPR (9/22, Neighmond) reports in a radio report and in its “Shots” blog that chronic stress, either from major events or even minor issues such as fretting while stuck in traffic, can be “deadly,” citing a study that followed 1,293 men for years. The study, which is scheduled for publication in the journal Experimental Gerontology, found that the “most stressed-out people have the highest risk of premature death.”

The blog post highlights a couple of solutions for “chronically upset worriers,” pointing out that exercise and meditation could help alleviate stress.

Related Links:

— “Best To Not Sweat The Small Stuff, Because It Could Kill You,” Patti Neighmond, National Public Radio, September 22, 2014.

NIMH’s Insel: Mental Health Symptoms Alone Rarely Indicate Best Choice Of Treatment

On its website, CBS News (9/22, Firger, Augenbraun) reported on the experiences of mothers whose children have severe mental illnesses. One of the mothers interviewed believes that “the mental health care system must move away from a symptom-based approach to treating mental illness often results in a wrong diagnosis or a succession of inadequate treatment efforts,” which is a “view…shared by Dr. Tom Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), who explains that ‘symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment.’”

In his blog on NIMH’s website, Dr. Insel wrote that the healthcare “system must get better at diagnosing and treating mental illness based on the latest research into its underlying biological causes.”

Related Links:

— ““Every mom’s worst nightmare”: Coping with a child’s mental illness,” Jessica Firger and Eliene Augenbraun, CBS News, September 22, 2014.