Here is your NEWS-Line for Mental Health Care Providers eNewsletter. For the latest news, jobs, education and blogs, bookmark our news page and job board or to take us everywhere with you, save this link to your phone. Also, enjoy the latest issue of NEWS-Line magazine, always free.
NEWS:
Video Gaming May Be Associated With Better Cognitive Performance In Children
A study of nearly 2,000 children found that those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more performed better on cognitive skills tests involving impulse control and working memory compared to children who had never played video games. Published in JAMA Network Open, this study analyzed data from the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and other entities of the National Institutes of Health.
“This study adds to our growing understanding of the associations between playing video games and brain development,” said NIDA Director Nora Volkow, M.D. “Numerous studies have linked video gaming to behavior and mental health problems. This study suggests that there may also be cognitive benefits associated with this popular pastime, which are worthy of further investigation.”
Althou
Read Full Article
NIH DREAM Study Finds Viagra and Cialis Do Not Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias
Results from the National Institutes of Health’s Drug Repurposing for Effective Alzheimer’s Medicines (DREAM) study show that sildenafil (Viagra) and tadalafil (Cialis) may not be suitable candidates for treating dementia. These findings are contrary to similar, previously reported research from another group. In this new study, NIH researchers and collaborators used data from Medicare beneficiaries and determined the medications sildenafil and tadalafil do not reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The study was funded by the NIH National Institute on Aging (NIA) and results published in Brain Communications. Identifying existing drugs that may also be repurposed for dementia could potentially get treatments to those in need faster than the traditional drug discovery process.
The NIA scientific team tested a class of drugs called phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibi
Read Full Article
FACT SHEET: Biden Administration Announces Six-Week Campaign to Get More Americans their Updated COVID-19 Vaccine Before End of the Year
Today, the Biden Administration is announcing a six-week campaign through the end of the year urging Americans to get their updated COVID-19 vaccine. With winter and holiday gatherings right around the corner, more Americans getting their updated vaccine will help avoid thousands of preventable COVID-19 deaths.
The six-week campaign will focus on reaching seniors and the communities that were hardest hit by COVID-19 by making it even more convenient to get vaccinated and increasing awareness through paid media.
Making it even more convenient to get vaccinated – particularly for seniors and communities most impacted:
Over 70,000 locations are offering the updated COVID-19 vaccines, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has taken steps this month to expand to even more locations, including mobile settings and sites in rural and remote areas, through more flexible orderi
Read Full Article
Statewide Pandemic Restrictions Not Related To Psychological Distress
Despite concerns that stay-at-home orders and other government efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic would cause lasting harm to people’s mental health, research published by the American Psychological Association found that state restrictions in the first six months of the pandemic were not related to worse mental health.
Instead, people with personal exposure to the virus and those who consumed several hours of COVID-19-related media a day were the most likely to experience distress, loneliness and symptoms of traumatic stress.
The findings were published in the journal Health Psychology.
“For the past several decades, our team has been examining the psychological impact of large-scale disasters on the population. In February 2020, we realized that the novel coronavirus, as it was called at the time, was likely to have an effect on the U.S. population i
