Smell Test May Predict Early Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease

July 29, 2016

 

NEW YORK, NY – Researchers from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), New York State Psychiatric Institute, and NewYork-Presbyterian reported that an odor identification test may prove useful in predicting cognitive decline and detecting early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

Their two studies, presented at the Alzheimer’s Association’s International Conference in Toronto, Canada, suggest that the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) may offer a practical, low-cost alternative to other tests.

Significant Pain Increases the Risk of Opioid Addiction by 41 Percent

July 29, 2016

 

NEW YORK, NY—What do we really know about the relationship between the experience of pain and risk of developing opioid use disorder? Results from a recent study—the first to directly address this question—show that people with moderate or more severe pain had a 41 percent higher risk of developing prescription opioid use disorders than those without, independent of other demographic and clinical factors.

These results, from researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, were published today in American Journal of Psychiatry.

Computers Can Predict Schizophrenia Based on How a Person Talks

August 26, 2015

 

...Most of the time, people don’t actively track the way one thought flows into the next. But in psychiatry, much attention is paid to such intricacies of thinking. For instance, disorganized thought, evidenced by disjointed patterns in speech, is considered a hallmark characteristic of schizophrenia. Several studies of at-risk youths have found that doctors are able to guess with impressive accuracy—the best predictive models hover around 79 percent—whether a person will develop psychosis based on tracking that person’s speech patterns in interviews.

A Grief So Deep It Won't Die

August 18, 2015

...Complicated or prolonged grief can assail anyone, but it is a particular problem for older adults, because they suffer so many losses—spouses, parents, siblings, friends.

It comes with bereavement,” said Dr. Katherine Shear, the psychiatrist who led the Columbia University study. “And the prevalence of important losses is so much greater in people over 65.”