Tag: Irwin

Reading of the Week: The Best of 2022

From the Editor

Welcome 2023.

It’s our tradition that we begin the New Year by reviewing the best of the past year; so, this week, we look back at 2022.

But a bit of a break from tradition: this year, we haven’t organized the papers by different categories, instead choosing eight great papers. Some have been published in big journals; others, not so big. They cover a variety of topics, from prevention to cutting-edge treatments. The one common thread: all are clinically relevant. And, yes, there is a Person of the Year. Spoiler alert: he had a big career and likes to mention Groucho Marx.

An observation about this past year: the quality of scholarship was very high. We’ve picked good papers – but could have picked scores of others. It’s a comment we’ve made in past years, and a good reason for optimism as our field grows more sophisticated and relevant.

DG

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Reading of the Week: Can We Prevent Depression in Older Adults? The New JAMA Psych Paper; Also, Homeless Youth and Mental Health (CJP)

From the Editor

It’s disabling and difficult to treat.

Can we prevent depression in older adults? Prevention is, of course, an important goal for any psychiatric disorder, reducing distress and health care costs. And the morbidity of major depressive disorder is great. A patient recently commented on his depressive episode: “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”

Dr. Michael R. Irwin (of the University of California, Los Angeles) and his co-authors offer interesting data in a new JAMA Psychiatry paper. Focused on elderly adults with insomnia, they provided a form of CBT in an RCT. They find: “In this trial of older adults without depression but with insomnia disorder, delivery of CBT-I prevented incident and recurrent major depressive disorder by more than 50% compared with SET, an active comparator.” We review this big paper and its clinical implications.

unknownLess time with depression, more time for dancing

In the other selection, we consider homeless youth. In a new Canadian Journal of Psychiatry paper, Sean A. Kidd (of the University of Toronto) et al. draw on national survey data. “Youth homelessness is a wicked social problem with variable definitions, multiple determinants, corollaries, and outcomes.” They note the connection to sexual violence and make policy recommendations.

DG

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