Intravenous (IV) lines are generally associated with medical centers — picture a patient in a hospital bed, an IV drip-dropping needed fluids, nutrients and medicines into their arm. But millions now are receiving IV treatments at home, and a new study warns that not enough people are being properly trained to watch out for potentially dangerous IV-associated infections. There are no standard protocols for training home care nurses, caregivers or the patients themselves how to watch out for and report signs of infections caused by IV lines, said co-author Dr. Sara Keller, an assistant professor of infectious disease at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md. “There are more patients receiving home infusion therapy now than there were 10 or 20 years ago, and being able to monitor complications in a validated and standardized fashion is going to be important,” Keller said. More than 3 million patients received IV treatment at home in 2019, a 300% increase from 2008, according to the National Home Infusion Association. “People no longer are in the hospital for six weeks of IV therapy,” said Dr. Aaron Glatt, chief of infectious disease at Mount Sinai South Nassau, in Oceanside, N.Y. “They’re sent home with central lines in place, and they’ll get their therapy on a daily basis as an outpatient, usually giving it to themselves or sometimes with…  read on >  read on >

When the deadly Camp Fire swept through Northern California in 2018, it may have damaged more than the landscape. University of California, San Diego researchers studying survivors’ mental functioning in the wake of the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history have uncovered evidence of “climate trauma.” The November 2018 fire burned 239 square miles, destroyed 18,804 structures and killed 85 people. “In this study, we wanted to learn whether and how climate trauma affected and altered cognitive and brain functions in a group of people who had experienced it during the Camp Fire,” said Jyoti Mishra, an associate professor of psychiatry and associate director of the UC Climate and Mental Health Initiative. “We found that those who were impacted, directly or indirectly, displayed weaker interference processing,” she said in a university news release. “Such weakened cognitive performance may then impair daily functioning and reduce well-being.” To function well, brains need to process information and manage memories that help a person achieve goals, while dispensing of harmful distractions, Mishra said. Extreme climate events are well-documented to have significant psychological impacts. “Warming temperatures, for example, have even been linked to greater suicide rates,” Mishra said. “As planetary warming amplifies, more forest fires are expected in California and globally, with significant implications for mental health effects.” The study included 27 people who were directly exposed…  read on >  read on >

A cancer diagnosis can be devastating. Now, new research shows that patients diagnosed with cancer have a risk of suicide 26% higher than the general population. A variety of factors contribute to the elevated risk, including geography, race and ethnicity, economic status and clinical characteristics, American Cancer Society (ACS) researchers found. The study also showed a decline in elevated risk for cancer patients compared with the general population from 67% in 2000 to 16% in 2016. “Our findings highlight the importance of timely symptom management and targeted interventions for suicide prevention in individuals with cancer,” said senior author Xuesong Han, scientific director of health services research at ACS. “These require joint efforts by federal and state governments, as well as health care providers, to ensure comprehensive health insurance coverage for psycho-oncological, psychosocial and palliative care, development of appropriate clinical guidelines for suicide risk screening, and inclusion of suicide prevention in survivorship care plans,” Han said in a society news release. Her team analyzed data from 16.8 million individuals diagnosed with cancer in 43 states between 2000 and 2016. During that time, nearly 20,800 people with cancer died by suicide. This elevated suicide risk was seen across all demographic groups, with particularly higher risks among folks who were Hispanic, uninsured, covered by Medicaid, or under 64 years of age and on Medicare. The suicide risk was…  read on >  read on >