Relatives of patients with Parkinson’s disease face increased risk of depression/anxiety disorders
Immediate relatives (brother, sister, mother, father, son or daughter) of people who have Parkinson’s disease are at increased risk for developing depression and anxiety disorders, according to a new study by Mayo Clinic. The risk is particularly increased in families of patients who develop Parkinson’s disease before age 75. The Mayo Clinic report appears in the December 2007 issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry (archpsyc.ama-assn.org/).
“Studies by our group and others have shown that relatives of patients with Parkinson’s disease have an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease,” explains Walter Rocca, M.D., senior author of the study and a Mayo Clinic neurologist and epidemiologist. “Recently, we showed they also have increased risk of essential tremor and of cognitive impairment or dementia. However, their risk of psychiatric disorders was unknown.
Researchers present unique program aimed at HIV prevention in runaway youth
Researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center are the first in the U.S. to develop an HIV prevention and intervention program for adolescent runaways that focuses on their strengths.
Liz Arnold, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine, presented the details of this 15-month pilot program at the National HIV Prevention Conference today in Atlanta.
FDA retains trial protocols for atrial fibrillation devices
The FDA’s Circulatory System Devices Panel turned down proposed alternatives to the randomized clinical trial process for ablation devices for refractory atrial fibrillation.
“As we see the technology evolve for device-based therapy for atrial fibrillation and transition from medical therapies to interventional therapies, it is important that we discover and develop methods to adjudicate the techniques and the devices so that we can be certain of the risk-benefit ratios, and we can be certain of the real evidence of efficacy and safety,” Panel Chairman Clyde W. Yancy, MD, medical director of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute, said in an interview. “Our intent is to promote the development of intervention and promote the development of devices, but to do so responsibly and to do so in a manner that we can be reasonably confident that the benefits will be realized as they are intended.”
