Tag: JAMA Neurology

Reading of the Week: Exercise & Depression – the New JAMA Psychiatry Paper; Also, Passes & Inpatients (CJP) and Dr. Khadilkar on Suicide (JAMA Neuro)

May 5, 2022 /

From the Editor

We often tell our patients about the importance of exercise. But how much exercise? And is this advice really evidence based?

In the first selection from JAMA Psychiatry, Matthew Pearce (of the University of Cambridge) and his co-authors consider exercise and depression with a systematic review and meta-analysis, drawing on data from more than 190 000 people. They conclude: “This systematic review and meta-analysis of associations between physical activity and depression suggests significant mental health benefits from being physically active, even at levels below the public health recommendations.” We consider the paper and its implications.

In the second selection, we look at a new research letter by Natalia Docteur (of the Sunnybrook Research Institute) and her co-authors. In The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, they consider passes for inpatients, wondering about the effect on length of stay and re-admissions. Interestingly, they conclude: “Overall, passes were associated with poorer post-discharge outcomes including prolonged length of stay and increased psychiatric readmissions.”

Finally, in the third selection, Dr. Amole Khadilkar (of Indigenous Services Canada) writes about his mental health problems. In a deeply personal essay, he notes the challenges of residency and warns against the culture of stoicism. “This is an important lesson to anyone who may be contemplating suicide during what seems like an irreversibly hopeless point in their life. You never know what the next day, the next month, or the next year may bring.”

Please note that there will be no Reading next week.

DG


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Reading of the Week: When Physical Medicine Met Mental Health; New Papers from General Hospital Psychiatry and JAMA Neurology

October 17, 2019 /

From the Editor

In my last hospital job, an afternoon might involve seeing a gentleman with poorly controlled diabetes, a woman who wasn’t participating in her post-hip physiotherapy, and an ICU patient with multiple problems. The common thread: they all had psychiatric diagnoses (PTSD, depression, and delirium, respectively).

Patients with physical and mental health problems can be costly and complicated. They also pose a challenge for a health care system that is designed for the simplicity of tackling one problem at a time.

This week, we look at a couple of papers on this interface between mental and physical health.

In the first paper, the University of Rochester’s Mark A. Oldman and his co-authors wonder if proactive psychiatric consultations can reduce hospital length of stay. With a systematic review, they conclude: “Our review indicates that proactive models of CL psychiatry whose screening is enriched by clinical expertise in mental health care and that deliver enhanced, proactive mental health services appear to reduce LOS, with preliminary cost-benefit analyses reporting favorable returns on investment that more than offset the increased costs of providing this level of enhanced care.”

hospitalGood Hospital, Good CL Service?

In the second paper, the University of Toronto’s Matthew J. Burke, a neurologist, considers patients who present with symptoms unexplained by medical disease. “The irony of ‘it’s all in your head’ is that although this phrase is often used inappropriately and dismissively, it is technically correct.”

DG

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