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Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Yale study finds suicide-prevention app effective for psychiatric inpatients
A new study conducted by researchers at Yale School of Medicine and The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine has determined that a mobile phone app providing suicide-specific therapy decreased suicidal thoughts among high-risk psychiatric patients. According to the research, the mobile therapy app OTX-202 cut the rate of post-discharge suicide attempts by 58.3% among patients with a history of such behavior. Researchers described this as a significant breakthrough for a population prone to repeated suicidal tendencies. Beyond preventing attempts, the app also helped sustain reductions in suicidal thoughts for up to 24 weeks after psychiatric hospitalization. By comparison, patients using a control app alongside standard treatment initially improved, but their suicidal thoughts returned by week 24. In the wake of the study's findings, the team behind it claims OTX-202 could be a valuable tool for maintaining mental health gains during the vulnerable period following discharge. Targeted therapy crucial as suicide rates increase In the US, suicide ranks among the leading causes of death, with its impact felt across multiple age groups. It is the second leading cause of death for those aged 10–14 and 25–34, the third for individuals aged 15–24, and the fourth for people aged 35–44. Over the past two decades, the national suicide rate has climbed by more than 33%, underscoring the urgent need for effective prevention strategies, the study outlines. More than one million adults in the US engage in nonfatal suicidal behavior each year, with nearly 500,000 hospitalized. Suicide and attempts at taking one's own life cost an estimated $500 billion annually, yet it remains the only leading cause of death without approved prescription treatments for most at-risk patients. According to the study's co-first author Craig Bryan, professor at Ohio State University's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health and director of its suicide prevention program, suicide-specific therapy can be highly effective at reducing suicidal thoughts and urges, but access to trained therapists after hospital discharge is often limited. The mobile app OTX-202 may help close this gap by delivering targeted therapy directly to patients, supporting their recovery and reducing the risk of relapse during the critical post-discharge period. Multi-site randomized trial revealed promising results As part of a multi-site, double-blind randomized controlled trial, researchers from Yale and Ohio State evaluated OTX-202 among 339 psychiatric inpatients across six US hospitals. Participants were assigned either to the OTX-202 app or to an active control app, while being administered standard care. While the control app offered safety planning and psychoeducation, OTX-202 delivered a targeted suicide-specific therapy module. Results showed that patients using OTX-202 were significantly more likely to improve, as measured by the Clinical Global Impression for Severity of Suicide-Change (CGI-SSC) scale—a standardized clinician-rated tool for tracking symptom severity and progress across diverse settings. "Patients and those who care for them do not have access to reliable and effective tools and resources to reduce future suicide risk. This population faces arguably the biggest gap in access to effective interventions of any leading killer. The potential clinical and population health impact of this new option is extraordinary," stated senior author Seth Feuerstein, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale, in a media release issued by the university.
Yahoo
10-08-2025
- Yahoo
Six injured in north Columbus crash on Interstate 71
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Six people were hospitalized after a crash overnight Sunday on a north Columbus highway. Two arrested by Lancaster police after body found in wooded area A police dispatcher said that the crash occurred just before 5:20 a.m. on Interstate 71 south at Hudson Street. Six victims were taken to three different hospitals as a result of the crash. An adult was transported to Grant Medical Center in critical condition while another adult was taken to Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center in critical but non-life threatening condition. The four other victims were transported to Nationwide Children's Hospital and were listed in stable condition. The crash closed down southbound lanes of I-71 north of Hudson Street for over an hour. Columbus police is continuing to investigate the crash. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Digital Trends
09-08-2025
- Health
- Digital Trends
Mobile app is helping with suicide prevention among at-risk people
Over the past decade, research and medical institutions have developed numerous apps that have helped patients living with serious health issues. From something as simple as logging sugar intake and mental health support to assisting with rehabilitation exercises and post-operative pain management, apps have emerged as a convenient solution for delivering medical help in recent years, especially in the pandemic era. The latest success story comes courtesy of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine and the Yale School of Medicine. An app developed by the experts at the institutions, called OTX-2022, helped bring down the recurrence of suicide attempts by a healthy margin among folks who have recently left a medical facility following an attempt at ending their life. Recommended Videos The app provides a dozen educational sessions lasting 10-15 minutes each to at-risk individuals with a mean age of roughly 28 years. After weeks of testing the app among patients who have attempted ending their lives before, the researchers concluded that the 'adjusted rate of follow-up suicide attempts was 58.3% lower in the digital therapeutic group. 'This reduction is a critical achievement for a group that is particularly vulnerable to repeated suicidal behaviors,' the team behind the research said in a press statement. The findings of the remarkable suicide-focused cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) study have been published in the JAMA Network Open journal. Suicide rates in the US have been on the rise for over two decades, and it is among the leading causes of death for individuals as young as 10 years. Notably, over a million people get involved in nonfatal suicidal behavior each year, and nearly half of them end up getting hospitalized. How was the app tested? The overarching benefit of using the app was that it 'led to a sustained reduction in suicidal ideation.' The research tested the mobile app in a randomized clinical trial involving 339 participants in psychiatric hospitals who were admitted with elevated suicide risks in the US between 2022 and 2024. 'Although suicide-specific therapy is highly effective for reducing suicidal thoughts and urges, finding therapists who know how to do this life-saving therapy after leaving the hospital can be challenging. OTX-202 provides a possible solution to that problem,' Craig Bryan, first author of the study and a professor at Ohio State's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, said about the app. According to experts, the period after being discharged from a hospital following a suicide attempt is the most risky, requiring vigilant intervention and care. The OTX-2022 app aims to fill that gap by offering proper guidance and necessary help to at-risk people. After using the app, the participants were examined using the widely used CGI scale for assessing symptoms and improvements. The team discovered that the group of people who used the mobile app were 'significantly more likely to show clinical improvement.' And it seems the app has proved its efficacy in the test phase itself. 'One suicide death occurred during the study in the control condition. There were no suicide deaths in the digital therapeutic group,' says the research paper. Due to the lack of effective interventions and resources for at-risk people in general, experts say the mobile app can prove to be an 'extraordinary' solution.
Yahoo
07-08-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Are Daily Contacts Actually Better Than Monthlies?
Credit - Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Images: clsgraphics/Getty Images, Evgeniya Pavlova—Getty Images, Daryna Pyrig—Getty Images) You don't need 20/20 vision to clearly see the benefits of daily contacts, eye doctors agree. Compared to monthlies, daily lenses 'have a pretty big advantage,' says Dr. William McLaughlin, an optometrist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. 'They're more comfortable, more convenient, and you'll have better eye health if you're using a fresh lens every day. They're absolutely the way to go.' Here's a look at why daily lenses beat out monthlies—plus how to put the higher price tag into perspective. They counteract bad habits Daily lenses are an 'easy yes' for people whose contact hygiene could use a tune-up, says Dr. Neal Guymon, an optometrist in Idaho known as Dr. EyeGuy online. That includes those who sleep in their lenses (which deprives oxygen from the eyes, just like 'sleeping with a paper bag over your head,' he says), don't clean their cases regularly, slack on subbing in new contact solution, and forget to switch into a new pair every month. Contact overuse—wearing lenses for more days than you should—can lead to inflammation on the eyeballs or eyelids, including giant papillary conjunctivitis, which is essentially an allergic reaction to wearing contacts for too long. 'It can be super irritating and hard to get rid of,' Guymon says. Sometimes, overuse can cause lenses to be 'clogged up with debris, so they lose the ability to transfer oxygen through the contact,' he adds, which leads to corneal neovascularization, or blood vessels that burrow into the cornea. Read More: Battling Dry Eyes? Here's What Actually Helps How you take care of your monthly lenses when they're not in your eyes matters, too. Contact cases harbor bacteria and biofilm (the sticky, slimy film that accumulates on your eyelids), so you should wash them every day, after you pop your lenses in. It's also a good idea to replace the case once a month, Guymon says, perhaps getting into the habit of doing so when you switch into a new pair of lenses. You should also replace the disinfectant solution in your case every day. 'When people come into my practice because they have an eye infection or an eye problem that's related to contact lenses, 99 times out of 100, it's someone who's either been sleeping in contacts or wearing the same lenses for three months,' Guymon says. 'Dailies are better, but they're not necessarily better because they're the better contact (which they are). It's more because people treat them the way they should be treated.' They have superior construction When daily lenses were introduced in the 1990s, ophthalmologists worried that people would wear them for more than just one day—that they'd buy a 90-pack and then never see their eye doctor again, stretching the lenses out far longer than they should. But those concerns didn't come to fruition. Daily lenses are so comfortable that people tend to quickly adapt to their new routine: Wake up, pop in a fresh set, go about the day, and then take them out and toss them in the trash, no solution or contact case required. 'It's a mindset,' says Dr. Christine Sindt, a clinical professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine. 'If you try to wear a daily disposable the second day, you will physically go, 'Oh, I don't feel as good.' People notice it, because it feels so good that first day. It turns out that when people wear dailies, it becomes who they are—it's their pattern of behavior.' Read More: 10 Symptoms ER Doctors Say to Never Ignore In part, that's because daily lenses are constructed differently than monthlies. They're thinner, which means they're less likely to create small corneal abrasions, or scratches on the surface of the eye. Plus, they're made out of different plastics and have different surface coatings that allow them to be more biocompatible, which means they don't harm any living tissue. (Monthlies, on the other hand, can, especially if you wear them for longer than their intended lifespan.) Some dailies, for example, are coated with phospholipid, which is what cell membranes are made of. 'For patients who have dry eyes, I'll put this lens on them, and it'll feel like a cozy blanket on the surface of their eye,' Sindt says. 'These lenses aren't only more comfortable [than monthlies]—in many cases, they're more comfortable than the bare eye.' They prevent grimy buildup When you wear the same contacts every day, they attract all kinds of proteins, lipids, and enzymes that are found in the tear film that keeps your eyes lubricated. 'When you have a foreign body in the eye, every time you blink, the body's mechanism is to try to protect itself,' which means it will secrete tears, says Dr. Shahzad Mian, a professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at University of Michigan. 'The more irritated the eyes are, the more proteins there are in your tear film—and those deposits then stick to the contact lens and cause even further irritation. It's a bad cycle some patients get stuck in.' If you're wearing daily lenses, on the other hand, you'll be tossing any buildup out at the end of the day—which means it won't have the chance to accumulate. They protect against infection Sindt is a 'huge fan of daily disposable contact lenses,' she says. 'And the reason is, I've been doing this a very long time, and I've seen a lot of eye infections. Wearing contact lenses is not benign.' When people land in her exam room, they've often developed a painful bacterial, parasitic, or fungal eye infection stemming from poor contact hygiene or overuse. While some infections cause little more than irritation, others could lead to vision loss or require a corneal transplant. 'I see the patients who have had adverse events,' Sindt says. 'I hear the stories, and it's an everyday thing. It's kind of like playing Russian Roulette, people who don't take care of their contact lenses.' You can generally get away with poor contact hygiene for a while, especially when you're young. Youth is an 'amazing protectant," Sindt says—young people have thicker tear films, as well as eyes that are less likely to become inflamed. But that doesn't last forever. 'If somebody goes along with their bad habits, at some point, they're going to get older, and they're going to end up with an infection,' she says. 'It catches up to everybody.' Read More: What to Do About Your Red, Itchy Eyes That's why even though dailies generally cost more than monthlies, eye experts say they're worth it. You'll save on contact solution and new cases, for one thing. Plus, 'what's the cost of an eye infection?' Sindt says. 'If you have a red eye and you have to take time off work—or if you hurt—what's the cost of pain? What's the cost of being annoyed? Those are all costs that people don't think of up front.' Contact us at letters@
Yahoo
27-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The Silent Symptom That Could Be a Sign of Blood Clots
The Silent Symptom That Could Be a Sign of Blood Clots originally appeared on Parade. Your blood's ability to clot after a cut or injury is an important defense mechanism to keep you from bleeding too much. But blood clots can cause serious health issues like strokes and heart attacks when they happen outside of that. About 900,000 people in the U.S. develop a blood clot each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). An estimated 60,000 to 100,000 Americans die from blood clot complications annually, making this an important health issue to be aware of. 'Awareness of blood clot symptoms is critically important because early recognition can be life-saving,' says, a pulmonologist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. 'Recognizing symptoms early allows for prompt medical treatment.' That can help lower the risk of permanent damage to organs or tissues, he points the problem: Not all symptoms of blood clots are obvious, and one in particular can be easily mistaken for other, much less severe health issues. Here's what doctors want you to keep in mind about this symptom, why it can be confused with other things and when to take action. 🩺SIGN UP for tips to stay healthy & fit with the top moves, clean eats, health trends & more delivered right to your inbox twice a week💊 How Do Serious Blood Clots Happen? Before we go over the symptom, it's important to first go over how blood clots can become serious. Blood clots that happen spontaneously usually start in the legs, explains , a vascular surgeon at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. 'They aren't life-threatening in themselves, but they occasionally dislodge and go to the lungs,' he says. This is called a pulmonary embolism. Related: With a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot gets stuck in an artery in the lung and blocks blood flow to part of the lung, Dr. Yi explains. There, it can cause permanent damage to the lungs, low oxygen levels in your blood, and damage to other organs in your body (from not getting enough oxygen), he says, adding, 'This can be life-threatening." The Silent Sign of Blood Clots To Know About, According to a Vascular Surgeon Back to that silent symptom: Shortness of breath is common with pulmonary embolisms. 'Shortness of breath is a hallmark symptom of pulmonary embolism because of how the condition affects the lungs and oxygen delivery,' Dr. Parson says. 'The blocked artery prevents blood from reaching parts of the lung, so oxygen can't be absorbed into the bloodstream efficiently, resulting in shortness of breath.' This blockage usually comes on suddenly, so the body doesn't have time to compensate for the lower-than-usual oxygen, he explains. That can lead to sudden and intense shortness of breath. Related: When Shortness of Breath Is a Sign of a Blood Clot Shortness of breath can also be a sign of a slew of other things, including being out of shape, having asthma or just having a cold, making this a tricky thing to pin on a blood clot. But doctors say there are a few key differences between 'regular' shortness of breath and feeling breathless due to a blood clot.'Standard shortness of breath usually comes with exercise or activity,' Dr. Yi says. 'With a blood clot, there is a sudden onset of shortness of breath where you feel like you can't catch your breath.' You may also start breathing faster than usual, he explains. Along with coming on hard and fast, shortness of breath from a blood clot tends to get worse with exertion or taking deep breaths, according to Dr. Other Signs of a Blood Clot and What To Do While sudden shortness of breath alone should raise concerns about a possible pulmonary embolism, there are other blood clot symptoms doctors warn should be on your radar: Fast breathing Chest pain (it usually gets worse when you cough or take a deep breath) A faster-than-usual heart rate Coughing, including coughing up blood Very low blood pressure Feeling lightheaded Fainting It can be tempting to write these signs off if you have one or two that can be explained away as something more minor. But doctors stress the importance of taking these seriously if you or someone around you has them. 'If someone experiences these symptoms, immediate medical attention is critical,' Dr. Parsons says. Up Next:Sources: How Does Blood Clot? National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Data and Statistics on Venous Thromboembolism, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Christopher Yi, MD, a vascular surgeon at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA Pulmonary Embolism. US National Library of Medicine Dr. Jonathan Parsons, MD, a pulmonologist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center The Silent Symptom That Could Be a Sign of Blood Clots first appeared on Parade on Jul 27, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 27, 2025, where it first appeared. Solve the daily Crossword
