Publisher Health

In new research in the journal Addictive Behaviors, public health researchers find that the prevalence of school discipline and school policing — core elements of the school-to-prison pipeline — predict subsequent school-average levels of substance use and developmental risk.
First author Seth Prins, PhD, a researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and co-authors analyzed 11 years of data from 4,800 schools and more than 4,950,000 students in California. They found that the prevalence of exclusionary school discipline (suspension and expulsion) and school-based police contact predicted higher school levels of binge drinking, drinking, smoking, using cannabis, using other drugs, and violence/harassment. They found also that the prevalence of school discipline also predicted lower levels of reported community support, feeling safe in school, and school support.
“Our findings are surprising to nobody who has been on the front lines of the fight against the mass criminalization of kids, especially in communities that have faced systematic disinvestment in social infrastructure and enormous investments in policing,” says Prins, an assistant professor of epidemiology and sociomedical sciences.
Prins and his co-authors argue that school discipline is not developmentally appropriate or responsive (and may be harmful) to adolescent health and developmental need. Furthermore, they say, heavy investments in school securitization and policing divert resources from school and community supports and services that might address the root causes of student disciplinary and health problems.
According to a report by the ACLU, more than 10 million students attend schools with police but no counselor, nurse, psychologist, or social worker. And 90 percent of students in public schools experience staffing ratios for those positions that fail to meet professional standards.
According to a report by the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration, in 2019, of the 1.1 million adolescents ages 12-17 who needed substance use treatment, only 6 percent received treatment in a specialty facility, and fewer than 1 in 10 adolescents and young adults with a substance use disorder reported any past-year treatment.
Within this context of low treatment access, a 2019 study found that more than a third of adolescents who do access any mental health treatment access it only at school (they are disproportionately Black and low-income).
The latest study by Prins and colleagues builds on a study they published last year finding the schools with students who have higher levels of substance use and depressed feelings have a higher prevalence of school discipline and school-based police contact, and that schools with students who felt less safe in school and reported lower school and community support had a higher prevalence of school discipline.
“We need to invest in kids, not cops. We need to prevent and treat substance use problems and the conditions that generate them, not criminalize and punish kids’ health,” says Prins.
Study co-authors include Ruth T. Shefner, Sandhya Kajeepet, Charles Branas, and Lisa Metsch at Columbia Mailman School; Mark L.Hatzenbuehler at Harvard University; and Stephen T.Russell at University of Texas, Austin.
Funding for the study was provided by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA045955, DA037801). The authors declare no competing interests.

Giving the combination of immune checkpoint inhibitors relatlimab and nivolumab to patients with stage III melanoma before surgery was safe and completely cleared all viable tumor in 57% of patients in a Phase II study, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported in Nature today.
In addition to meeting the primary endpoint of pathologic complete response (pCR), the overall pathologic response rate (up to 50% of viable tumor left at the time of surgery) was 70%. No patients had grade 3 or 4 immune-related adverse events (IRAEs) in the neoadjuvant (pre-surgery) setting or confirmed toxicity-related surgical delays.
“With clinical stage III melanoma, the risk that the cancer comes back after surgery can be as high as 50%. One of the goals of neoadjuvant immunotherapy is to reduce the chance of recurrence by evaluating treatments in earlier stage, operable disease that have been successful for stage IV melanoma,” said lead/corresponding author Rodabe Amaria, M.D., associate professor of Melanoma Medical Oncology. “Our findings support the combination of relatlimab and nivolumab as a safe and effective treatment option in the neoadjuvant setting for stage III melanoma.”
Relatlimab is a novel immune checkpoint inhibitor that blocks LAG-3, which is found on the surface of T cells and often is upregulated in melanoma. Nivolumab is a PD-1 inhibitor. The Food and Drug Administration approved the same combination for stage IV melanoma in March 2022 based on results of the RELATIVITY-047 study, reported by MD Anderson in the New England Journal of Medicine in January 2022.
The data also build on recent encouraging results for single-agent neoadjuvant immunotherapy presented by MD Anderson at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022 for stage III-IV melanoma and stage II-IV cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma.
The study enrolled 30 patients at MD Anderson and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to receive two doses of neoadjuvant relatlimab and nivolumab, followed by surgery and 10 doses of the same combination in the adjuvant setting. One patient developed a brain metastasis during neoadjuvant therapy and did not proceed to surgery. The median age of patients was 60, and 63% of patients were male.
After a median of 24.4 months follow-up in the 29 patients who underwent surgery, the rate of recurrence-free survival (RFS) was 97% at one year and 82% at two years. RFS rates were highest in patients with a pCR: 100% at one year and 91% at two years, compared to 92% and 69% in patients without a pCR. The one- and two-year overall survival rates for all patients were 93% and 88%, respectively.
No grade 3 or 4 IRAEs occurred during the eight weeks of neoadjuvant treatment. One patient’s surgery was delayed due to asymptomatic myocarditis, which was determined to be unrelated to treatment. During adjuvant therapy, 26% of patients developed grade 3 or 4 IRAEs, with secondary adrenal insufficiency and elevated liver enzymes being two of the most common side effects.
The results are favorable in relation to two prior study arms, which assessed nivolumab either alone or in combination with the CTLA-4 checkpoint inhibitor ipilimumab. Those results, reported by Amaria and colleagues in Nature Medicine in 2018, showed a pCR rate of 45%, with 73% of patients experiencing grade 3 side effects in the combination arm. The nivolumab monotherapy arm achieved a pCR rate of 25%, with 8% of patients experiencing grade 3 side effects. The high toxicity rate led to early closure of the previous study.
“We’re very pleased to see that the combination of relatlimab and nivolumab balanced safety and efficacy, and it did not result in any delays to surgery,” Amaria said. “We want to provide patients with a treatment option that will help reduce the risk of their cancer returning after surgery. Our data complement the RELATIVITY-047 study results and provide further evidence to support the use of this combination in melanoma.”
Translational studies of blood and tissue samples revealed that a greater presence of immune cells at baseline and decreases in M2 macrophages during treatment were associated with pathological response. Pathologic response was not correlated with LAG-3 and PD-1 levels in baseline tumor samples. Further follow-up is needed to determine the impact on overall survival and biomarkers of response.
The study was funded by Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). Amaria has worked in a consulting/advisory role for and received research/grant support from BMS. MD Anderson authorship included co-lead author Elizabeth Burton and co-senior authors Padmanee Sharma, M.D., Ph.D., Jennifer Wargo, M.D., and Hussein Tawbi, M.D., Ph.D. 

While low-carb diets are often recommended for those being treated for diabetes, little evidence exists on whether eating fewer carbs can impact the blood sugar of those with diabetes or prediabetes who aren’t treated by medications.
Now, according to new research from Tulane University, a low-carb diet can help those with unmedicated diabetes — and those at risk for diabetes — lower their blood sugar.
The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, compared two groups: one assigned to a low-carb diet and another that continued with their usual diet. After six months, the low-carb diet group had greater drops in hemoglobin A1c, a marker for blood sugar levels, when compared with the group who ate their usual diet. The low-carbohydrate diet group also lost weight and had lower fasting glucose levels.
“The key message is that a low-carbohydrate diet, if maintained, might be a useful approach for preventing and treating Type 2 diabetes, though more research is needed,” said lead author Kirsten Dorans, assistant professor of epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
Approximately 37 million Americans have diabetes, a condition that occurs when the body doesn’t use insulin properly and can’t regulate blood sugar levels.Type 2 diabetes comprises more than 90% of those cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Type 2 diabetes can severely impact quality of life with symptoms such as blurred vision, numb hands and feet, and overall tiredness and can cause other serious health problems like heart disease, vision loss and kidney disease.
The study’s findings are especially important for those with prediabetes whose A1c levels are higher than normal but below levels that would be classified as diabetes. Approximately 96 million Americans have prediabetes and more than 80% of those with prediabetes are unaware, according to the CDC. Those with prediabetes are at increased risk for Type 2 diabetes, heart attacks or strokes and are usually not taking medications to lower blood sugar levels, making a healthy diet more crucial.
The study involved participants whose blood sugar ranged from prediabetic to diabetic levels and who were not on diabetes medication. Those in the low-carb group saw A1c levels drop 0.23% more than the usual diet group, an amount Dorans called “modest but clinically relevant.” Importantly, fats made up around half of the calories eaten by those in the low-carb group, but the fats were mostly healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in foods like olive oil and nuts.
Dorans said the study doesn’t prove that a low-carb diet prevents diabetes. But it does open the door to further research about how to mitigate health risks of those with prediabetes and diabetes not treated by medication.
“We already know that a low-carbohydrate diet is one dietary approach used among people who have Type 2 diabetes, but there is not as much evidence on effects of this diet on blood sugar in people with prediabetes,” Dorans said. “Future work could be done to see if this dietary approach may be an alternative approach for Type 2 diabetes prevention.”
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Materials provided by Tulane University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

A monoclonal antibody that targets heroin is effective in blocking the psychoactive and lethal effects of this drug of abuse in mice — offering a new strategy for heroin addiction and overdose treatment, according to a new study from Scripps Research.
In the study, published on October 6, 2022 in ACS Central Science, the researchers isolated several distinct variants (or “clones”) of antibodies that bind tightly to heroin and its major metabolites. They found that one of these monoclonal antibodies was remarkably effective at blocking heroin’s painkilling effect, as well as its effect in slowing breathing and heart rate — the cause of overdose deaths.
The results also suggested that heroin itself is the best target for such therapies, whereas researchers in the past have targeted heroin’s two major metabolites, morphine and 6-acetylmorphine.
The use of monoclonal antibodies is often called a “passive” vaccine strategy. Active vaccines against heroin, which use immune-stimulating proteins that mimic heroin or its metabolites to elicit the patient’s own antibodies, have so far not been effective enough for clinical trials.
“Our findings suggest that a monoclonal antibody-based therapy will be more effective than a vaccine and should be targeted to heroin itself rather than its psychoactive metabolites,” says study senior author Kim Janda, PhD, the Ely R. Callaway, Jr. Professor of Chemistry, and director of the Worm Institute for Research & Medicine at Scripps Research.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that there were roughly 108,000 drug overdose deaths in the country in 2021, a jump of nearly 15 percent from 2020’s figure. The great majority of these deaths involved opioids such as heroin and fentanyl. Current treatments, which include the small-molecule drug naloxone, are far from being completely effective, and heroin-use relapse after treatment is common.

Researchers from Department of Microbiology, School of Clinical Medicine, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), University of Michigan, Johannes Kepler University Linz, and other overseas institutions revealed insights into the broad-spectrum ‘pan-coronavirus’ antiviral activity and mechanism of the molecularly engineered banana lectin ‘H84T-BanLec’. The findings have been recently published in the scientific journal Cell Reports Medicine.
Background
New SARS-CoV-2 variants and other coronaviruses are likely to emerge in the future. Some of these may develop resistance to existing antivirals. Thus, ‘pan-coronavirus’ antivirals are urgently needed to prepare for these emerging threats. The research team investigated the antiviral effect of the molecularly engineered banana lectin ‘H84T-BanLec’ against SARS-CoV-2 and other known human-pathogenic coronaviruses in a series of cell line, human ex vivo lung tissue and animal models. The team found that H84T-BanLec potently inhibits all of the coronaviruses tested through binding to multiple spike mannose sites with high affinity to inhibit viral entry into host cells. This unique antiviral mechanism of H84T-BanLec makes it difficult for the viruses to develop resistance and allows H84T-BanLec to be a potential ‘pan-coronavirus’ antiviral for the current COVID-19 and future coronavirus pandemics.
Research methodology and findings
BanLec is a lectin from the jacalin-related lectin family isolated from bananas. The molecularly engineered H84T-BanLec possesses preserved antiviral activity and reduced mitogenicity. H84T-BanLec potently inhibits SARS-CoV-2 and its variants (including Omicron), MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-1, HCoV-OC43, and HCoV-229E in cell lines. In the human ex vivo lung tissue culture model, H84T-BanLec inhibits MERS-CoV at nanomolar concentrations. H84T-BanLec significantly increased the survival rate of human DPP4-knockin mice infected with MERS-CoV. Importantly, intranasal administration was similarly effective as intraperitoneal administration of H84T-BanLec in the golden Syrian hamster model of COVID-19. Structural analyses with high-speed atomic force microscopy and single-molecular force spectroscopy demonstrated the binding of H84T-BanLec to multiple SARS-CoV-2 spike mannose sites with high affinity. The multiple H84T-BanLec binding sites on spike likely account for the drug compound’s broad-spectrum antiviral activity and the lack of resistant mutants.
Significance of the study
The study shows that H84T-BanLec is highly active against not only SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, but also other known human-pathogenic coronaviruses. The unique mechanism of H84T-BanLec makes it a potential ‘pan-coronavirus’ antiviral drug compound that is not likely to become ineffective against new SARS-CoV-2 variants and novel coronaviruses that are likely to emerge in the future. Importantly, as H84T-BanLec is known to be also active against other viruses such as influenza viruses, intranasal administration of H84T-BanLec may become an especially useful for countermeasure for seasonal outbreaks of respiratory viruses.
About the research team
Dr Jasper Chan Fuk-woo, Clinical Associate Professor; Dr Yuan Shuofeng, Assistant Professor; Dr Chu Hin, Assistant Professor; Department of Microbiology, School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed; and Dr Yoo Jin Oh, Johannes Kepler University Linz are co-first authors of this study.
Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, Henry Fok Professor in Infectious Diseases, Chair Professor of Department of Microbiology, School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed, Co-Director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, The University of Hong Kong and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; Professor David Markovitz, University of Michigan; and Professor Peter Hinterdorfer, Johannes Kepler University Linz are corresponding authors of this study.
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Researchers at Linköping University have identified in mice the cells in the blood vessels of the brain that are necessary for a fever reaction. The results have been published in PNAS, and answer a long-standing question of which organs are involved in producing fever.
“Everyone gets fevers, occasionally. If we understand the mechanisms behind fever, we can also understand how new drugs and treatments can work,” says Anders Blomqvist, professor emeritus at the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University.
Fever is the body’s response to infection or inflammation, and a defence mechanism against, for example, viruses and bacteria. When affected by infection or inflammation, the body releases molecules known as cytokines into the blood circulation. These molecules are too large to pass through the blood-brain barrier, a network of tiny blood vessels that protects the brain from harmful substances. But fever is just a symptom, which becomes manifest after the brain has itself released signals. So how does the brain detect that the body is affected by an inflammation or infection?
The explanation can be found in receptors located on the outer surface of the blood-brain barrier that detect the cytokines. These receptors pass the signal on to cells on the inner surface of the blood-vessel walls in the blood-brain barrier, known as endothelial cells. They then start to produce the hormone-like molecule prostaglandin E2, which in turn activates receptors in the hypothalamus, which acts as the body’s thermostat. A fever reaction has been initiated. It has, however, been unclear until now whether this is the only mechanism behind fever.
It has previously been believed that prostaglandin must be produced also in certain cells of such organs as the liver and lungs in order to start a fever reaction. But the researchers at Linköping University have now shown that this is not the case. In a study on mice published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS, Anders Blomqvist and his colleagues show that the endothelial cells of the brain are the only ones required for a fever reaction to be produced.
“Our results answer a question that has been asked for several decades. There has not previously been any evidence that only the endothelial cells in the brain are needed to start a fever reaction. We have now filled this gap in our knowledge,” says Anders Blomqvist.
The researchers have worked with gene-modified mice in which they have removed certain genes that code for prostaglandin production in the brain endothelial cells. The mice were subsequently injected with substances that are present in the cell walls of certain bacteria, producing in this way fever. The gene-modified mice did not show any fever reaction after the injection.
This allowed the researchers to conclude that these endothelial cells are necessary to elicit fever, but did not show whether they are sufficient. For this reason, the researchers conducted tests on another gene-modified mouse model in which the only cells that could produce prostaglandin E2 were the brain endothelial cells. These mice exhibited a fever reaction, which confirms that the brain endothelial cells are, indeed, sufficient.
These experiments have been made possible using advanced techniques for managing and examining experimental animals. By surgically inserting an intravenous catheter and recording body temperature using telemetry, both the injections and the measurements can be made without causing stress for the animal, which means that the fever reaction can be observed more accurately.
“The general public has long believed that the body temperature of small animals is higher than that of humans and other large mammals, around 40 degrees. But the measurements have been erroneous, since the animals became stressed during the process. The techniques we have used show that the mice have the same temperature as humans,” says Anders Blomqvist.
The research has received financial support from the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Brain Foundation and the Swedish Cancer Society.
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Materials provided by Linköping University. Original written by Anders Törneholm. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Clean, choppy, or cranking, when the surf’s up, so too are the surfers. But even the most avid surfer would steer clear of the waves when a shark is about… or would they?
In a new study from the University of South Australia, researchers found that 60 per cent of surfers are not afraid of sharks when surfing, despite more than half of them spotting a shark when out in the water.
It’s an interesting finding, particularly given people’s general fascination and fear of sharks, but as behavioural scientist and conservation psychology researcher, UniSA’s Dr Brianna Le Busque, says it’s a step in the right direction when it comes to shark conservation.
“People have long feared sharks — not surprisingly given the hype generated from modern shark movies,” Dr Le Busque says.
“But exaggerated depictions of sharks have unfairly influenced people and as a result, have damaged shark conservation efforts.
“Surfers are frequent ocean users, so they’re in a unique position to change these perceptions.

Biomedical and electrical engineers at UNSW Sydney have developed a new way to measure neural activity using light — rather than electricity — which could lead to a complete reimagining of medical technologies like nerve-operated prosthetics and brain-machine interfaces.
Professor François Ladouceur, with UNSW’s School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, says the multi-disciplinary team has just demonstrated in the lab what it proved theoretically shortly before the pandemic: that sensors built using liquid crystal and integrated optics technologies — dubbed ‘optrodes’ — can register nerve impulses in a living animal body.
Not only do these optrodes perform just as well as conventional electrodes — that use electricity to detect a nerve impulse — but they also address “very thorny issues that competing technologies cannot address,” says Prof. Ladouceur.
“Firstly, it’s very difficult to shrink the size of the interface using conventional electrodes so that thousands of them can connect to thousands of nerves within a very small area.
“One of the problems as you shrink thousands of electrodes and put them ever closer together to connect to the biological tissues is that their individual resistance increases, which degrades the signal-to-noise ratio so we have a problem reading the signal. We call this ‘impedance mismatch’.
“Another problem is what we call ‘crosstalk’ — when you shrink these electrodes and bring them closer together, they start to talk to, or affect each other because of their proximity.”
But because optrodes use light and not electricity to detect neural signals, the problems of impedance mismatch is redundant and crosstalk minimised.

Why do metastases often only appear after the original tumor has been surgically removed? Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and the Mannheim Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University have now published an explanation for this phenomenon. They were able to identify a messenger substance of the cancer cells that locally promotes the growth of the primary tumor. In the blood, the messenger is split into two fragments, one of which suppresses metastasis. Tumor-bearing mice treated with the metastasis-inhibiting fragment survived cancer longer than untreated animals.
Cancer doctors are familiar with the observation: in many of their patients, the usually life-threatening metastases only appear after the original tumor has been surgically removed. This phenomenon is particularly common in breast cancer and black skin cancer. Physicians have derived the concept of “concomitant tumor resistance” from this observation. It states that the original cancer focus, also called the primary tumor, can suppress the growth of the daughter tumors known as metastases.
The causes of this phenomenon are as yet poorly understood. Experts assume that the immune system plays a role, together with so-called angiogenic factors, which influence the connection of the metastases to the blood vessel system. From a size of about one millimeter, the daughter tumors depend on being supplied by blood vessels. Researchers were able to show several years ago that, depending on the tissue environment, tumors either release messenger substances that promote the formation of new blood vessels or factors that suppress the sprouting of new veins.
Scientists led by Hellmut Augustin and Moritz Felcht of the German Cancer Research Center and the Mannheim Medical School of Heidelberg University have now taken a closer look at the messenger angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPLT4). “We became aware of ANGPLT4 because there are many contradictory publications on this factor,” Augustin said. “While ANGPLT4 was initially described as promoting the formation of new blood vessels and thus also promoting cancer, other studies were able to prove the exact opposite and show that ANGPLT4 inhibits the development of metastases.”
In comprehensive series of experiments on human and mouse tumors, the Heidelberg-Mannheim team elucidated a surprising mechanism. Among 38 different messenger substances that act on vascularization and possibly on concomitant tumor resistance, ANGPLT4 was found to be one of the molecules most strongly correlated with progressive tumor growth
ANGPLT4 is produced by cells of the primary tumor and locally promotes its growth. However, if the messenger substance is released into the bloodstream, it is cleaved. The two cleavage products are called nANGPLT4 and cANGPLT4. For reasons not yet fully understood, the n fragment (nANGPLT4) is found almost exclusively in serum. nANGPLT4, however, binds to a different receptor than either the intact molecule or the c fragment.

Survivors of ECMO life support had a 24% higher rate of new mental health diagnoses after discharge compared to other ICU survivors, according to the first study of its kind, published in JAMA.
ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, is the most advanced form of life support. It temporarily replaces the heart and lungs of patients suffering from heart or respiratory failure. This resource-intensive treatment is usually reserved for younger, healthier patients who are most likely to survive. This is the first study to look at how their mental health is affected.
“ECMO saves lives. About 50 to 65% of patients who receive this treatment will survive, and most are alive five years later,” said Dr. Shannon Fernando, a critical care physician at Lakeridge Health and postdoctoral fellow at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa. “We already knew that ICU survivors can suffer mental health impacts from the trauma of invasive treatments, living with new physical limitations and dealing with long recovery times. We suspected ECMO survivors would be at greater risk of mental health impacts because they are sedated and ventilated for longer and often face a more challenging recovery. But we didn’t have clear data until now.”
To find out, the team of researchers from The Ottawa Hospital, the Institut du Savoir Montfort, ICES and the University of Ottawa looked at health records from all ICU survivors in Ontario, Canada from April 2010 to March 2020.
The researchers matched the 642 ECMO survivors with 3,820 other ICU survivors who had similar characteristics including age, sex, mental health history, critical illness severity and hospital length of stay. This analysis found ECMO patients had a 24% higher rate of new mental health diagnoses compared with other ICU survivors.
Of the 642 ECMO survivors, 236 (37%) were diagnosed with a new mental health condition. The most frequent diagnoses were depression, anxiety, and mental health conditions caused by a traumatic experience, known as traumatic disorders. Previous studies have found these to be the most common mental health diagnoses among survivors of critical illness.
“As care providers, we can tell our patients that it’s common to struggle with your mental health after an ICU admission,” said Dr. Peter Tanuseputro, co-senior author, physician-scientist at The Ottawa Hospital and ICES, investigator at the Bruyère Research Institute and associate professor at the Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa. “ICU survivors need to realize that they often face months or years of recovery, and families and healthcare providers need to support them.”
This study’s findings are particularly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the use of ECMO grew worldwide to address never-before-seen numbers of patients with severe respiratory failure. At the height of the pandemic, the province of Ontario had twice as many patients on ECMO as it did pre-pandemic.
“We suddenly have a lot more ECMO survivors because of COVID-19. We need to make sure they have the mental health support they need to recover and thrive.” said Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, co-senior author on the paper and scientist and critical care physician at The Ottawa Hospital, senior clinician investigator at the Institut du Savoir Montfort and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa.
The research team recently received a research grant from the Montfort Alternate Funding Plan to test a virtual treatment program for post-ICU syndrome, a collection of physical, mental and emotional symptoms that persist after an ICU admission. The program will offer mental health services, physical therapy, and advice from nutritionists in an attempt to centralize services and take pressure off primary care providers and Emergency Departments.
The exact reasons why ECMO survivors are at greater risk of mental health problems compared to other ICU survivors is still unclear, and more research is needed.
“We really need more research and investment in the area of post-critical illness,” said Dr. Fernando. “Patients will need help long after they leave the ICU.”