Cross sectional studies (Mordal et al) tell us that around a third of patients admitted to acute psychiatric wards have illicit drugs detected in their system on admission. A third of patients also report a need for professional help in relation to their substance use. This new systematic review from researchers at York University (Mdege [read the full story…]
Parents who have a child with autism are understandably often very keen to find out the risk of subsequent children also having the condition. Until now, research studies estimated the risk to be between 3-10%, but this evidence was regarded as quite unreliable. This cohort study conducted by researchers in California is the largest prospective [read the full story…]
Depression often occurs in later life and people in poor physical condition tend to be more susceptible than others. Older people in hospital who get depressed have poorer outcomes, so it’s important that we know how to detect depression and manage it in the acute setting. This systematic review conducted by researchers in Swansea set [read the full story…]
Whilst there is no evidence that dementia affects people with learning disabilities in ways that are different to those without learning disability, there is a risk that the early stages of the disease may be missed or misinterpreted. People with Down syndrome may present with clinical symptoms in their late 40s or early 50s. Estimates [read the full story…]
Screening for alcohol misuse in the emergency department needs to be done quickly and accurately, so it makes sense to find the best instrument for this purpose. This systematic review of diagnostic cohort studies searched a range of databases and journals and also conducted citation searching because of a lack of relevant literature found by [read the full story…]
This study set out to investigate the natural history of thyroid function in adults with Down syndrome as there is currently a lack of good long-term follow-up data. The study team looked at annual thyroid function tests in 200 adults with Down syndrome over a 15-year period. They found that in healthy adults with Down [read the full story…]
