Depression in elderly people is causing early mortality, a University of Liverpool study has found. In a project involving more than 300 elderly people who had been discharged from hospital, 17% were found to have previously undiagnosed depression and of that figure, 7% died within two years of leaving hospital.
More than half of American women (60%) say they only get a good night?s sleep a few nights per week or less and 67% say they frequently experience a sleep problem. Additionally, 43% say that daytime sleepiness interferes with their daily activities, according to a new poll released today by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF).
Children whose parents and families are under ongoing stress have more fevers with illness than other children. Published this month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the study also shows the unanticipated conclusion that children’s natural killer cell function, part of the body’s innate immune system, increases under chronic stress, unlike adults, whose function is decreased.
Rates of major depression are higher among whites, but the condition appears more likely to be severe, untreated and disabling among blacks, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Forms of ill treatment during captivity that do not involve physical pain — such as psychological manipulation, deprivation, humiliation and forced stress positions — appear to cause as much mental distress and traumatic stress as physical torture, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Girls born weighing less than 2,500 grams (about 5.5 pounds) may be more likely to develop depression between ages 13 to 16 than those born at a normal weight, while the same does not appear to be true for boys, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Inadequate intellectual stimulation and poor nutrition, especially iodine and iron deficiencies, are likely to blame for hindering more than 200 million children in developing countries from meeting their full potential, says a Purdue University researcher.
A woman?s breast cancer diagnosis can wreak as much havoc on her emotions as it does on her physical health. Mothers who experience bouts of depression during their battles with breast cancer may find that the effects reach beyond their own psyches to those of their children.
Severe stress can damage a child’s brain, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
A widely practiced, stress-reducing meditation technique significantly decreases the severity of congestive heart failure, according to a first-of-its-kind randomized study published in Ethnicity & Disease (Winter 2007).