Mirtazapine, biperiden, and vitamin B6 have the greatest efficacy for antipsychotic-induced akathisia (AIA) treatment, according to a systematic review and network meta-analysis published in JAMA Network Open. Vitamin B6 demonstrated the best efficacy and tolerance profile. Antipsychotics are the first-line treatment for patients with schizophrenia spectrum and psychotic disorders. However, some patients taking antipsychotics will experience AIA, a disorder characterized by restlessness and continuous, excessive movement. Patients with AIA are often at increased risk for suicidality and treatm ..read more

Brief behavioral therapy (BBT) is broadly effective for pediatric patients with depression and anxiety. However, BBT does not outperform assisted referral to outpatient community care (ARC) among children and adolescents with pediatric trauma exposure. These findings were published in NPJ Mental Health Research. Although anxiety and depression are the most common psychiatric disorders among children and adolescents, these disorders frequently go untreated before adulthood. Recently, evidence-based transdiagnostic psychotherapies have been developed in the hopes of increasing access to treatmen ..read more

HealthDay News — Supplementation with probiotics and vitamin D may have beneficial effects on cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia, according to a study published online April 10 in Neuropsychopharmacology Reports. Aida Mohammadi, from University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences in Iran, and colleagues evaluated the effects of probiotic/vitamin D (400 IU) supplementation on cognitive function and disease severity in 69 patients (aged 18 to 65 years) with schizophrenia. The researchers found that the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score increased by 1.96 units in ..read more

In patients with chronic, noncancer-related pain who have been prescribed opioids, emotional dysregulation, such as feeling helpless, can contribute to pain catastrophizing and worsen pain experience, according to study results published in Pain Medicine. The experience of pain may be worsened by pain catastrophizing, a cognitive and emotional response to and in anticipation of pain. However, little is known about the interaction between pain catastrophizing and emotional regulation as well as the effect on patients’ experience of pain. To determine whether difficulties in the regulation of em ..read more

Among patients with epilepsy, the risk for mortality and hospitalization from COVID-19 infection is higher, according to study results published in Epilepsia. Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study to determine whether patients with epilepsy are at a greater risk for being hospitalized with and dying from COVID-19. The primary outcomes of interest included COVID-19 hospitalization and death, both of which were analyzed using Cox proportional hazard models. The researchers used the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) database to source hospital admission and demographic dat ..read more

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared Rejoyn for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) symptoms as an adjunct to clinician-managed outpatient care for adult patients with MDD, aged 22 years and older, who are on antidepressant medication. The treatment is intended to reduce MDD symptoms. Rejoyn is the first prescription smartphone app-based digital therapeutic designed to help enhance cognitive control of emotion through a combination of clinically-validated cognitive emotional training exercises for the brain and brief therapeutic lessons.  “ When stronger and mo ..read more

Asthma/sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) overlap is highly prevalent among school-age children in low-income urban neighborhoods and is associated with poorer lung function and atopy, especially rhinitis. These were among study findings published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. Investigators sought to identify clinical features associated with asthma/SDB overlap in school-age children living in low-income urban areas. The investigators hypothesized that among these children, those with asthma/SDB overlap would have a higher prevalence of atopic disease and obesity and lower lung ..read more

An average daily screen time of 2 hours or more is associated with lower psychological well-being among preschool-aged children in the United States, according to study findings published in the JAMA Network Open. High screen time (HST) was particularly prevalent among children living in poverty. Previous research has demonstrated that screen time among young children has increased globally, especially at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, relatively little is known about whether these levels have remained elevated in preschool-aged children in the US across race, ethnicity, and fami ..read more

Individuals who experience visual hallucinations at or before first-episode psychosis (FEP) are at increased risk for repeated suicide attempts throughout their illness, according to study results published in Schizophrenia. Visual hallucinations were also associated with short-term symptom severity and functional impairment. Although visual hallucinations are frequently reported by individuals with psychotic disorders and are associated with greater illness severity and functional impairments, it is significantly less researched than auditory hallucinations. Furthermore, it remains unclear as ..read more

HealthDay News — High levels of glucose and triglycerides are associated with future risk for depression, anxiety, and stress-related disorders, according to a study published online April 2 in JAMA Network Open. Charilaos Chourpiliadis, M.D., from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues conducted a population-based cohort study with longitudinal data collection involving 211,200 participants from the Apolipoprotein-Related Mortality Risk cohort who underwent occupational health screening to examine whether biomarkers of carbohydrate, lipid, and apolipoprotein metabolism are ass ..read more