INFORMATION:
Dual treatments help PTSD and depression
2021-02-04
(Press-News.org) This study is the first randomised control trial to rigorously test a sequential approach to treating comorbid PTSD and major depressive disorder.
Findings from a trial of 52 patients undergoing three types of treatment regime - using only Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), using Behavioural Activation Therapy (BA) with some CPT, or CPT with some BA - found that a combined treatment protocol resulted in meaningful reductions in PTSD and depression severity, with improvements maintained at six-month follow-up investigations.
"We sought to examine whether a protocol that specifically targeted both PTSD and comorbid depression would benefit those with this dual diagnosis compared with a solely PTSD-focused protocol," says Flinders PTSD research expert Professor Reg Nixon.
"With some qualifications, the answer to this question is yes in the case of CPT and BA."
The findings - "Comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder: The usefulness of a sequential treatment approach within a randomised design," by Samantha Angelakis, Nathan Weber, and Reg Nixon - has been published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders.
It found that the reductions in depressive symptoms that occur when PTSD symptoms are targeted early in treatment are consolidated when closely followed with behavioural activation.
"Although the findings need to be replicated, our observation that when depression was targeted before PTSD that those individuals did not quite have as good an outcome as those in the other conditions indicates there might be a cost to delaying or putting off targeting PTSD symptoms over depressive symptoms," says Professor Nixon.
"Facing one's trauma is understandably very difficult, but our findings suggest that trying to 'ease' into this work and working on depression first might not in fact help clients as much as people would expect."
The researchers also noted that CPT alone, without any modifications, still demonstrated positive outcomes in this comorbid sample
"Our clinical view at this time is that when individuals with PTSD and MDD present for PTSD treatment, CPT should be delivered first."
Those with higher levels of depression showed greater change from treatment than those with lower levels of depression. Although symptoms tended to remain higher in these individuals after treatment than those with lower levels of depression, the findings indicated that those with high levels of depression still benefited from therapy.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Toshiba's new algorithms quickly deliver highly accurate solutions to complex problems
2021-02-04
TOKYO --Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) and Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation (collectively Toshiba), industry leaders in solutions for large-scale optimization problems, today announced the Ballistic Simulated Bifurcation Algorithm (bSB) and the Discrete Simulated Bifurcation Algorithm (dSB), new algorithms that far surpass the performance of Toshiba's previous Simulated Bifurcation Algorithm (SB). The new algorithms will be applied to finding solutions to highly complex problems in areas as diverse as portfolio management, drug development and logistics management. ...
Help for borderline personality disorder
2021-02-04
Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD, is the most common personality disorder in Australia, affecting up to 5% of the population at some stage, and Flinders University researchers warn more needs to be done to meet this high consumer needs.
A new study in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing (Wiley) describes how people with BPD are becoming more knowledgeable about the disorder and available treatments, but may find it difficult to find evidence-based help for their symptoms.
The South Australian psychiatric researchers warn these services are constrained by stigma ...
Solving chronic pain during intercourse
2021-02-04
Researchers at Flinders University are working to remedy this situation by identifying what triggers this chronic pain in the female reproductive tract.
Dr Joel Castro Kraftchenko - Head of Endometriosis Research for the Visceral Pain Group (VIPER), with the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University - is leading research into the pain attached to Dyspareunia, also known as vaginal hyperalgesia or painful intercourse, which is one of the most debilitating symptoms experienced by women with endometriosis and vulvodynia.
Pain is detected by specialised proteins (called ion channels) that are present in sensory nerves and project from peripheral organs to the central ...
A new tool in the search for axions
2021-02-04
Researchers from the international BASE collaboration at CERN, Switzerland, which is led by the RIKEN Fundamental Symmetries Laboratory, have discovered a new avenue to search for axions--a hypothetical particle that is one of the candidates of dark matter particles. The group, which usually performs ultra-high precision measurements of the fundamental properties of trapped antimatter, has for the first time used the ultra-sensitive superconducting single antiproton detection system of their advanced Penning trap experiment as a sensitive dark matter antenna.
If our current understanding of cosmology is correct, ordinary "visible" matter only ...
Pregnant questions
2021-02-04
When health researchers ask pregnant women about their alcohol use, expectant women may underreport their drinking, hampering efforts to minimize alcohol use in pregnancy and prevent development of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) in children.
In a recently published study in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, University of New Mexico scientists found that pregnant women's reporting of their own risky drinking varies greatly depending on how key questions are worded.
Most women know that alcohol use during pregnancy may harm their unborn child - and that leads to fear of being ...
Genetics study finds ancestral background can affect Alzheimer's disease risk
2021-02-04
Genetics contributes to the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, and the APOE gene is the strongest genetic risk factor, specifically the APOE4 allele. However, it has been known for a while that the risk due to the APOE4 allele differs considerably across populations, with Europeans having a greater risk from the APOE4 allele than Africans and African Americans.
"If you inherited your APOE4 allele from your African ancestor, you have a lower risk for Alzheimer disease than if you inherited your APOE4 allele from your European ancestor," said Jeffery M. Vance, M.D., Ph.D., professor and founding chair of ...
Female breast cancer surpasses lung as the most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide
2021-02-04
ATLANTA - FEBRUARY 4, 2021 - Cancer ranks as a leading cause of death in every country in the world, and, for the first time, female breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer, overtaking lung cancer, according to a collaborative report, Global Cancer Statistics 2020, from the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Data show that 1 in 5 men and women worldwide develop cancer during their lifetime, and 1 in 8 men and 1 in 11 women die from the disease.
The article describes cancer incidence and mortality at the global level and according to sex, geography, ...
The proton conduction mechanism in protic ionic liquids
2021-02-04
Niigata, Japan - Researchers from the Graduate School of Science and Technology at Niigata University, Japan along with their collaborators from Tokyo University of Science (Japan), Yamagata University (Japan) and University of Regensburg (Germany) have published a scientific article which enhances clarity on the understanding of proton conduction mechanism in protic ionic liquids. The findings which were recently published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry B sheds light on the transport of hydrogen ions in these liquids, which opens new avenues for the development of novel energy generation and storage devices.
With ...
Deadly white-nose syndrome changed genes in surviving bats
2021-02-04
Scientists have found genetic differences between bats killed by white-nose syndrome and bats that survived, suggesting that survivors rapidly evolve to resist the fungal disease, according to a Rutgers-led study with big implications for deciding how to safeguard bat populations.
White-nose syndrome has killed millions of bats in North America since 2006, following its introduction from Europe. The syndrome, caused by the fungal pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans, is arguably the most catastrophic wildlife disease in history. It has led to unprecedented declines in many North American bat species, including the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus).
"Our finding that little brown bat populations have evolved, which could be why they survived, has large implications for ...
Deforestation is stressing mammals out
2021-02-04
Lots of us are feeling pretty anxious about the destruction of the natural world. It turns out, humans aren't the only ones stressing out--by analyzing hormones that accumulate in fur, researchers found that rodents and marsupials living in smaller patches of South America's Atlantic Forest are under more stress than ones living in more intact forests.
"We suspected that organisms in deforested areas would show higher levels of stress than animals in more pristine forests, and we found evidence that that's true," says Noé de la Sancha, a research associate at the Field Museum in Chicago, Associate Professor of Biology at Chicago State University, ...