Depression screening for cancer patients too often falls between the cracks
Depression is known to be associated with cancer yet too many cancer patients are not screened for this mental disorder, according to researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine, the Regenstrief Institute and the Roudebush VA Medical Center.
In a study published in the November-December issue of General Hospital Psychiatry, Caroline Carney Doebbeling, M.D., M.Sc. and Laura Jones, Ph.D., looked at data from the Roudebush VA Medical Center, where 95 percent of veterans in primary care are screened for depression.
Asking Where And When The Next Disease Outbreak Could Happen
It was one of those things you hear about on the news: an outbreak of monkeypox in the Chicago area. An animal dealer placed infected rats from Africa next to a crate of prairie dogs. The disease spread to the prairie dogs, which were then sold in pet stores across the nation. Dozens of people in multiple states were sickened from contact with the animals.
The incident gave K-State veterinary medicine graduate Christine Ellis a little bit of global perspective. At the time, she was working as an associate veterinarian at The Midwest Bird and Exotic Animal Hospital in the Chicago area.
Is there a developmental component to the risk for depression?
Psychiatrists remain divided as to how to define and classify the mood and anxiety disorders, the most common mental disorders. Committees across the globe are currently pondering how best to carve nature at its anxious joints for the fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V), the “gold standard” reference book for psychiatrists. Only recently has the process of refining the diagnostic system been informed by high quality longitudinal data. An important new study of this type was published in the December 1st issue of Biological Psychiatry.
Ian Colman, Ph.D., the lead author, notes, ““Rarely have classification systems in psychiatry considered the nature of symptoms of depression and anxiety over time; however research into trajectories of alcohol abuse and antisocial behaviour shows that accounting for symptoms over time may help in better understanding causes and outcomes of these disorders.”
