News • Long-term anxiety
Cardiac arrest 'haunts' women more often than men
More than 40% of women report anxiety four months after a cardiac arrest compared with 23% of men, according to research presented at ESC Acute CardioVascular Care 2023.
Psychology
News • Access to medical information
Bad news from test results? Patients still want to know right away
A recent survey of more than 8,000 patients found that users overwhelmingly supported receiving their test results immediately, even if their provider had not yet reviewed them.
News • Temporal anomalies? Not quite
Our heartbeat can distort our perception of time
Do you feel like time sometimes flies, or can drag on when you're bored? A recent study by academics at Royal Holloway shows how our heartbeats can lead to distortions in our perception of time.
News • Curative effects of Sonata KV488
Epilepsy: researchers dispel "Mozart myth"
A new study by psychologists at the University of Vienna shows that there is no scientific evidence supporting the alleged positive effect of Mozart's Sonata KV448 on epilepsy.
News • Psychological issues of NCMP
Childhood obesity programme: doing more harm than good?
England’s National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) is designed to tackle childhood obesity. However, a new study suggests it might give rise to mental health problems in children.
News • "Critical" critical care
Study shows soaring mental health challenges for frontline Covid nurses
Nurses who worked in critical care during the Covid pandemic are at an increased risk of mental health problems, according to a new study.
News • Mental health
Robots can be used to assess children’s mental wellbeing
According to a new study, robots can be better at detecting mental wellbeing issues in children than parent-reported or self-reported testing.
News • Dementia destigmatisation
"This Is Us": Alzheimer's storyline in TV drama found to have positive impact
The inclusion of a narrative about Alzheimer’s disease in primetime TV drama “This Is Us” was found to help reduce stigma around dementia and motivate family discussions about plans for aging.
News • Surprising results
Experts expected smoking to increase during the pandemic – but the opposite happened
Danish smokers bought less tobacco and more quit smoking during the Covid pandemic, new research finds. This comes as a surprise given that mental health and exercise habits waned during the lockdown.
News • Impact of language in PCOS patients
“Words matter” when diagnosing women with polycystic ovary syndrome
The language used by doctors when diagnosing female patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) can negatively impact their wellbeing and how they view their condition, new research finds.
News • For the first time
Similarity between schizophrenia and dementia dicovered
Researchers for the first time compared schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia, disorders that are both located in the frontal and temporal lobe regions of the brain.
News • Hashtag hygiene
Covid-19 disinformation: experts explain "infodemic"
More than 225,000 tweets with the hashtags #scamdemic and #plandemic led to an “infodemic” of misinformation and disinformation on Twitter during the first year of the pandemic, a new study finds.
News • Effects on anxiety, depression
Is having a dog good for mental health? Yes and no, say experts
It is often believed that a close relationship between owners and their dogs can bring many mental health benefits to owners, but findings from a new study paint a more complicated picture.
News • During pandemic
Extent of moral injuries faced by healthcare workers
Staff across all levels of UK health and social care reported feeling betrayed, morally violated and being treated unjustly and unfairly at work during the Covid-19 pandemic.
News • "Broken heart syndrome"
Brain changes linked to emotion discovered in Takotsubo syndrome
Changes in areas of the brain associated with emotion have been identified in people with Takotsubo syndrome, sometimes known as broken heart syndrome, according to new research.
Article • Patient-focused radiography
Dementia and autism patients in the MRI: not aggressive, just lost
Patients with neurological conditions such as dementia or autism can prove especially challenging for radiographers. A session at the ECR Overture in March gave insights to a patient-focused approach.
News • Workforce exodus
A third of GPs plan to jump ship within five years
Around 33% of GPs are likely to quit direct patient care within five years, according to a UK survey. The high percentage of young physicians is especially alarming.
Article • Chatbots & co
E-mental health: A solution for a rising challenge
E-mental health services could provide a response to these challenges and offer effective ways for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and aftercare.
News • Lack of support
Frontline healthcare workers: Covid heroes – or cannon fodder?
A large-scale qualitative study looks into the difficulties frontline doctors faced across two waves of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK and Ireland since early 2020.
News • Addressing coronavirus vaccine hesitancy
Covid-19: Could a chatbot help overcome vaccine concerns?
French researchers have found that addressing concerns related to the Covid-19 vaccination via a chatbot interface might be capable of swaying the vaccine-hesitant. Vaccine hesitancy is one of the major challenges in containing the Covid-19 pandemic. Previous studies have revealed that mass communication—through short messages relayed by television or radio—is not a very effective means of…
News • SARS-CoV-2 in the media
Does 'beautifying' the Coronavirus make us underestimate its danger?
Colourful, 3D rendered scientific images are fascinating - but can they deceive viewers? New research from Spain suggests this might be the case. According to the study by the Instituto de Radio Televisión Española and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona conducted during the Covid-19 lockdown, black and white images of SARS-CoV-2 make the virus seem more infectious. The results, published on…
Article • Immersive imaging distraction
VR system to reduce MRI scan anxiety
Claustrophobia or anxiety can overwhelm small children and people with cognitive difficulties, especially in a confining and noisy MRI scanner tube. Their restless reactions can then render scan images useless. To help such patients to relax during scanning, a team from King’s College London (KCL) has designed an immersive environment with a special virtual reality (VR) headset for use with MRI…
News • Psychology of the pandemic
How gamification helps us cope with Covid-19
A pandemic is not a game. Yet, human response in dealing with Covid-19 resembles patterns known from games: people hoard resources, compare leaderboards and graphs, play certain social roles, establish a good-versus-evil narrative, and align themselves with prominent hero figures. The reasoning behind this is simple.
News • Stress, depression, anxiety
Suppress or sustain? How our brain handles traumatic memories
Two clusters of brain cells compete to promote either the persistence or disappearance of traumatic memories, according to a new study conducted in mice. The findings could provide important insights into human conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, and associated problems such as alcohol use disorder (AUD) that can arise from the persistence of traumatic…
News • Post-traumatic stress disorder
Is PTSD on the rise - or just overdiagnosed?
Some clinicians are concerned that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis has risen throughout Western society since the late 1980s. Is this correct? And if so, has the true incidence of PTSD really spiralled out of control, or has it simply become overdiagnosed? Experts debate the issue in The BMJ this week. PTSD is a serious and uncommon condition resulting from severe trauma, but it…
