NEW PULSE PUBLICATION: The inaugural issue of the PULSE Quarterly Briefing was published in late June and has already received a great deal of praise ("Brilliant" - Fran Silvestri, Director: International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership; "A triumphant inaugural issue" - Paul Lefkovitz, CEO: Behavioral Pathway Systems; "Very useful..." - Elaine Alfano, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law). The PQB comes bundled with two other services, the "PULSE Bulletin" (40 issues/year) and "Recent Resources" (10 issues /year) and organizational subscriptions include access to a set of Internet-based tools for distributing news and announcements. For details on subscriptions, please see the new PULSE Community Site.

 Tuesday, July 26, 2005

New FDA-Approved Device Offers Hope to Depressed Patients Medical News Today story - "The Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center medical team involved in the research and development of an innovative therapy for depression - vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) - is starting a new clinic for patients who have treatment-resistant depression. The vagal nerve stimulator was approved Friday by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment-resistant depression following clinical trials around the United States, including Saint Louis University."  
  

Medicare and Medicaid at 40  Page indexing a number of resources at the Kaiser Family Foundation site - "The Medicare and Medicaid health coverage programs were signed into law July 30, 1965. The Kaiser Family Foundation has some new resources that examine how Medicare and Medicaid came into existence and how they have evolved over the past 40 years. You will find new documentaries and extended interviews with key policymakers and government officials examining the origins of Medicare and Medicaid, new interactive historical timelines, a chart pack of key information and statistics, a webcast of a retrospective of the two programs with historian Robert Dallek and key government officials responsible for the programs over the past 40 years, and many other background resources on the two programs."  
  

Quetiapine Seen Safe, Well Tolerated for Bipolar Depression Reuters Health story at Medscape - "Monotherapy with the atypical antipsychotic quetiapine is safe and effective for bipolar depression, according to a report in the July issue the American Journal of Psychiatry. ... 'In an unexpected post hoc analysis, quetiapine was found to be twice as effective as placebo in reducing suicidal thinking, and this improvement was evident as early as the first time point, the end of the first week, and at each and every time point thereafter,' Dr. Calabrese told Reuters Health. 'To my knowledge this is the first time any drug has been shown to have an ability to reduce suicidal thinking in a short-term study of bipolar depression.' " [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Health Services Research on the Prevention and Treatment of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Notice at the Federal Funding Opportunities web site - "This Program Announcement solicits health services research on the prevention and treatment of drug and alcohol abuse. Proposed research might emphasize any of the following subjects: (1) Factors that affect the delivery of drug and alcohol abuse intervention and related services, such as social factors, personal behaviors and attributes, financing, organization, management, and health technologies; (2) Dimensions of drug and alcohol abuse intervention and related services, such as accessibility, utilization, quality, effectiveness, and costs; (3) Processes of blending science-based practices into community-based provision of drug and alcohol abuse prevention services; and (4) Research tools to facilitate higher quality health services research on drug and alcohol abuse."  
  

Work Experiences of Persons with Mental Illness  Online survey at the NAMI web site - "Your participation in this survey by NAMI Texas and Texas A & M University will help make a difference in how employers respond to the needs of employees with mental illness."  
  

Neuroscientists identify how trauma triggers long-lasting memories in the brain  University of California - Irvine press release at EurekAlert - "A research team led by UC Irvine neuroscientists has identified how the brain processes and stores emotional experiences as long-term memories. The research, performed on rats, could help neuroscientists better understand why emotionally arousing events are remembered over longer periods than emotionally neutral events, and may ultimately find application in treatments for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder. The study shows that emotionally arousing events activate the brain's amygdala, the almond-shaped portion of the brain involved in emotional learning and memory, which then increases a protein called 'Arc' in the neurons in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in processing and enabling the storage of lasting memories. The researchers believe that Arc helps store these memories by strengthening the synapses, the connections between neurons. The study will appear in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "  
  

Governors Urge Focus on Medicaid Washington Post story - "As Congress and President Bush have sparred over Social Security and the federal judiciary this year, the top legislative priority of the nation's governors has not changed. Republican and Democratic state executives say nothing is more important to the states than restructuring Medicaid, and they worry that the federal government has not gotten the message. Medicaid was not part of the official agenda at the National Governors Association summer meeting in Des Moines earlier this month, but it was a regular topic of discussion at the governors-only sessions..."  
  

Hawaii To Create Plan For Individualized Mental Health Care Item in the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report - "The Adult Mental Health Division of the Hawaii Department of Health on Thursday announced plans to implement a community mental health plan after reviewing a 'scathing' report released by U.S. Magistrate Kevin Chang, the Honolulu Advertiser reports. In the report, Chang said the state is far behind in its efforts to provide a federally mandated standard of care for 9,000 mentally ill state residents..."  
  

Darfur study, 2005: Basic needs, mental health, and women's health among IDPs Reuters Health story - "A recent study conducted in South Darfur by Dr. Lynn Lawry (formerly Amowitz), Director of Evidence-Based Research for International Medical Corps (IMC), warns that while some of the displaced population’s basic needs are being met by humanitarian organizations, significant gaps persist in general health services, mental health, and women’s health needs. The current international aid response is not fully meeting these needs. The study calls for immediate steps to be taken to address the poor state of mental and women’s health. ... The prevalence of depression and suicide rates presents a considerable challenge for humanitarian agencies in Sudan. This reflects a more general need to address mental health needs in populations affected by conflict as the priority is usually given to physical health."