States Must Take the Lead
June 30th, 2008
State policies have a significant impact on the services performed by substance abuse treatment programs, and could play a key role in efforts to expand the use of research-based “comprehensive” treatment approaches, reports a study in the June issue of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment (JSAT).
“The states are uniquely positioned to institute specific policy proscriptions emanating from scientific research in the substance abuse treatment arena, indicating that a comprehensive approach…[is] associated with positive treatment outcomes and reduced recidivism,” according to the researchers, led by Jamie F. Chriqui, Ph.D., M.H.S., of University of Illinois at Chicago.
Mental Health Patients Must Wait
June 30th, 2008
Nearly 80% of hospitals say mentally ill patients who need to be hospitalized sometimes must wait four hours or longer to be admitted because of a shortage of psychiatric beds and mental health staff, according to a survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians, USA Today reports. By comparison, 30% of hospitals said patients not seeking mental health services had to wait four hours or more before being admitted.
For the study, ACEP officials surveyed 328 emergency medical directors. The survey also found:
About 10% of the directors said psychiatric patients wait more than one day on average;
84% of directors said ED wait times would decrease for all patients if their hospitals offered better psychiatric services;
Half of the hospitals surveyed had psychiatric units, while the rest transferred patients to other facilities; and
61% of hospitals surveyed do not have psychiatric staff caring for ED patients while they wait, but those patients do receive care for other medical problems.
The number of psychiatric beds in U.S. community hospitals has declined 12% since 2000, compared to a 4% decline in overall hospital beds, according to ACEP.
According to James Bentley of the American Hospital Association, hospitals have begun closing their psychiatric units because of low payments from government programs and health insurers, uncompensated care for uninsured patients and a shortage of psychiatrists willing to work in hospitals. Bruce Schwartz, director of psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center, said, “For individuals in need of admission because they’re psychotic or severely depressed, it can be a very uncomfortable, scary, disorienting time” (Appleby, USA Today, 6/17).
Marijuana can make some pain worse
June 24th, 2008
- MONDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) — Oral cannabis (a form of medical marijuana) was ineffective in treating certain types of acute pain and actually increased sensitivity to some other kinds of discomfort, say researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria.
Their study included 18 healthy women who were given oral cannabis or a placebo. The women were then evaluated for heat and electrical pain thresholds in skin areas that had induced sunburn. This is an accepted method of assessing response to acute pain.
“The surprising result of our study was the absence of any kind of analgesic activity of THC-standardized cannabis extract on experimentally induced pain using well-established human model procedures,” study author Dr. Birgit Kraft said in a prepared statement. “Our results also seem to support the impression that high doses of cannabinoids may even cause increased sensitivity in certain pain conditions.”
The study is published in the July issue of the journal Anesthesiology.
ADD Medication is a Cause For Concern
June 20th, 2008
ScienceDaily (June 17, 2008) — Concerned by the growing numbers of people using stimulant medications such as methylphenidate (MP)–either legally or illegally–to improve attention and focus, researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) imaging with the radiotracer fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) to assess the effects of the drug on brain function in the normal human brain.
“MP is often prescribed appropriately for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who are unable to focus their minds in order to perform everyday tasks,” said Nora Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Md. “We wanted to better understand how the drug works in ‘normal, healthy’ people when they are performing a cognitive task, as well as when they are not.”
The Candidates on Addiction
June 10th, 2008
Based on their records, neither John McCain or Barack Obama can really be considered a leader in the drug-policy arena. Still, both appear to have a broader and more nuanced understanding of addiction issues than their White House predecessor, and William Cope Moyers, vice president of external affairs at Hazelden, says that he has “never been more hopeful that addiction treatment will begin to get the attention it deserves, because we at least have two candidates who are aware of the issue.”