Surge in Telehealth Visits to Psychiatrists, Study Reveals Alarming Rates of Drug Overdoses, and More: Top Mental Health Trends in 2021

In 2021, telehealth visits to psychiatrists were significantly higher at 43.2% compared to visits to other physicians, which stood at only 4.5%, according to the Annals of Internal Medicine. On a different note, one in three U.S. adults knew someone who had died from a drug overdose, as reported by JAMA Health Forum.

A meta-analysis of 29 studies revealed that individuals with schizophrenia tend to have lower bone mineral density at the lumbar spine and femoral neck, putting them at a higher risk of fractures. Additionally, a 91-year-old psychiatrist and former friend of Jeffrey Epstein is facing a lawsuit for allegedly exploiting a woman as a “sex slave.”

A promising new tool for diagnosing dementia in primary care patients is a 5-minute cognitive assessment called 5-Cog, as stated in Nature Medicine. The JAMA Network Open reports a significant increase in the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among college students between 2017 and 2022.

Over the past 80 years, the description of mental illness has evolved from using terms like “disease” and “disturbance” to more modern terms like “psychiatric” and “mental health,” according to a study in PLOS Mental Health. In Canada, a startup has been licensed to export psilocybin and MDMA to Australia for medical purposes.

Unfortunately, Otsuka Pharmaceutical had to discontinue its investigational Alzheimer’s disease-related agitation treatment, AVP-786, after it failed in a late-stage study. Researchers have also found that teens diagnosed with internet addiction show disrupted signaling between brain regions responsible for controlling attention, as reported in PLOS Mental Health.

Lastly, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services expanded access to mental health care by adding 10 new states to a Medicaid behavioral health program. A study published in JAMA Psychiatry found that two forms of psychotherapy – cognitive behavioral therapy and emotion-focused therapy – were equally effective in preventing the recurrence of a new bipolar episode.