Sharp Rise in Drug Overdoses Among U.S. Women: CDC

More now die from prescription medications than from car crashes, study finds

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) -- The rate of fatal overdoses of prescription painkillers and other drugs among U.S. women quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, federal officials reported Tuesday.

Long thought of as primarily a male problem, drug addiction is increasingly affecting women, and the new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 42 women in the United States die each day from prescription drug overdoses.

"Prescription drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed in women," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said during a noon press conference. "Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are dying from overdoses at rates we have never seen before."

The CDC said that nearly 48,000 women died of overdoses from any form of prescribed drug between 1999 and 2010. The annual death rate for women from drug overdoses now surpasses that of car crash deaths, the agency said.

Emergency room visits for abuse or overdose have also increased dramatically, Frieden added.

Much of this increase is due to the widespread abuse of prescription opioid painkillers such as Oxycontin or Vicodin, which have been more frequently prescribed in the past decade.

"The increase in opioid overdoses and opioid overdose deaths is directly proportional to the increase in prescribing," Frieden said.

These drugs should be reserved for treating severe pain, as occurs with debilitating illnesses such as cancer. "But in many other situations, the risks [to patients] far outweigh the benefits," he said. "Prescribing an opioid may be condemning a patient to lifelong addiction and life-threatening complications."

Although men are still more likely to die from painkiller overdoses, since 1999 the percentage increase in deaths was greater among women -- 400 percent in women compared with 265 percent in men, the CDC said.

Other statistics, based on 2010 data:

Suicides from these drugs accounted for 34 percent of all suicides among women, compared with 8 percent among men.More than 940,000 women were seen in emergency departments for drug misuse or abuse.More than 6,600 women, or 18 women every day, died from a prescription painkiller overdose.Narcotic painkillers accounted for four times more deaths among women than deaths linked to cocaine and heroin combined. More than 200,000 emergency department visits were for misuse or abuse of these drugs among women -- about one every three minutes.

"This is a major public health concern and it's getting worse every year," said Dr. Yves Duroseau, chairman of emergency services at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "People are losing their lives unnecessarily.

"There needs to be more public awareness of the detrimental effects of these medications," he added. "And there needs to be more support to get people off narcotic painkillers and help them with their dependence."

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Video Game May Help Keep Aging Brains Sharp

Older gamers may gain more mentally than crossword puzzle solvers, study suggests

By Maureen Salamon

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- Keeping the brain nimble in older adulthood may be as simple as playing a video game, according to researchers who compared the thought-process benefits of crossword puzzles with a computer program that increased users' mental speed and agility.

Analyzing 681 healthy people aged 50 and up, scientists found that those who played a "Road Tour" video game for at least 10 hours -- which required them to identify "vehicles" among an ever-faster array -- gained at least three years of cognitive (mental skill) improvement after one year. A group that received four additional hours of training with the game improved their thinking abilities by four years.

"The bad news about brain plasticity is that . . . we start slowing down in our early 30s and it continues. The good news is, with the right kind of training programs, we can regain what we've lost and maybe get people to higher levels," said study author Fredric Wolinsky, a professor of public health at the University of Iowa.

"It seems some remodeling of the brain is taking place, but we need to figure out exactly which parts of the brain are undergoing functional improvements," added Wolinsky, who has no financial stake in the video game used in the research.

The study is published May 1 in the journal PLoS ONE.

Wolinsky and his team split participants into four groups, further separating them into sets of those 50 to 64 and those over 65. One group was given computerized crossword puzzles and the three other groups repeatedly used the Road Tour game.

The video game centers on quickly identifying a type of vehicle and matching its symbol with the correct road sign among a circular array of possibilities. The player must succeed three out of every four tries to advance to the next level, which speeds up the process and adds more distractions.

Participants who played the video game scored significantly higher than those in the crossword puzzle group on tests involving executive function such as concentration, agile shifting from one mental task to another, and information processing speed. The mental improvement in the video game group ranged from 1.5 to nearly seven years compared to those doing crossword puzzles, the investigators found.

Wolinsky noted that many other brain-training games are available commercially, though few have scientific evidence to back up their cognitive improvement claims. Road Tour forces users to widen their field of vision in order to take in all the information required to succeed, he said.

"There's been considerable assumption that the visual field of view, the amount of area we take in, declines with age," he said. "For people to visualize the center and periphery requires them to shift their field of view to capture more information, and the training helps them be more successful at doing that. It's a retrainable skill."

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Mental Exercise May Help Keep Seniors Sharp

Even solving puzzles might stave off decline and memory loss, study hints

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- Mental exercise can help prevent thinking and memory decline in seniors, but evidence for the benefits of supplements and exercise is weak, according to a new study.

The findings were published in the CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

The researchers reviewed 32 studies, including three that examined the effects of mental exercise involving computerized training programs or intensive one-on-one personal training in memory, reasoning or processing speed.

One of the studies found significant improvements in participants' memory over five years of follow-up. Another found an improvement in auditory memory and attention, according to a journal news release.

Supplements such as gingko, vitamins, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and other substances, however, appeared to provide no benefit. The same was true for physical exercise. Estrogen was associated with an increase in mental decline and dementia.

"This review provides some evidence to help clinicians and their patients address what strategies might prevent cognitive decline," wrote Dr. Raza Naqvi, of the division of geriatric medicine at the University of Toronto, and co-authors. "Future studies should address the impact of cognitive training on the prevention of cognitive decline, and we encourage researchers to consider easily accessible tools such as crossword puzzles and Sudoku that have not been rigorously studied."

Mild cognitive impairment affects 10 percent to 25 percent of people over age 70, according to the news release.

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Sharp spike in computer-related injuries predicted for health workers, studies find

3 December 2012 as American health care goes high-tech, spurred by $ 20 billion in the federal stimulus incentives, the general application of electronic medical records and related digital technologies is predicted to errors and lower cost--but it is also likely to strengthen significantly musculoskeletal injuries among doctors and nurses, concludes a professor Cornell University ergonomics in two new documents.

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The repetitive strain injuries, he said, will stem from bad Office layouts and improper use of computer devices.

"Many hospitals are investing heavily in new technology with almost no attention to the principles of ergonomics design for computer workstations," said Alan Hedge, professor of human factors and ergonomics in Cornell's College of Human Ecology Department of design and environmental analysis. "We saw a similar pattern in the 1980s when commercial automated workplaces, and there was an explosion of musculoskeletal injuries for more than a decade later begin."

For a newspaper published in the Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 56th annual meeting, 22-26 October held in Boston, hedge funds and James asked 179 doctors about the frequency and severity of their muscle and discomfort, computer use in their clinic, knowledge of ergonomics and typing skills. The most commonly reported repetitive strain injuries were neck, shoulder and upper and lower back pain--with a majority of female doctors and more than 40 percent of the male doctors such ailments reporting on at least weekly. About 40 percent of women and 30 percent of men reported right wrist injury with a comparable frequency. (Study: https://cornell.box.com/Hedge).

"These rates are alarming. When more than 40 percent of the workers complain about regular problems, that is a sign that something needs to be done to do, "said Hedge. "In a lot of hospitals and medical offices, safety at the workplace is aimed at preventing slips, trips and falls on patients and treatment, but the impact of computer use on the human body be neglected."

The differences between men and women, the authors write, seem to be partly because women reported spending about an hour per day on the computer longer than men.

In a second study of 180 physicians and nurse practitioners and physician assistants of 63 in the same health care, published in a new volume "Advances in human aspects of healthcare" (CRC Press), more than 90 percent of respondents reported using a desktop computer at work. On average, she spent more than five hours per day use of computers.

Fifty-six of doctors and 71% of the practitioners of nurse and physician assistants said their computer use at work had increased in the past year; 22% of the doctors and 19 percent of practitioners of nurse and physician assistants reported less time in face-to-face interaction with patients. Only about 5 percent of the participants reported an "expert knowledge" of ergonomics, and more than two-thirds said that they had no input in the planning or design of their computer or clinical workstation.

"We cannot assume that just because people are doctors or working in the health care that they know about ergonomics," Hedge said. "With so many negative consequences for doctors and patients, it is crucial that the implementation of new technology is considered from a perspective of design and ergonomics."

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