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Press releases Saturday 16 July 2005
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(1) BEING SMART DOESN'T GUARANTEE HAPPINESS IN OLD AGE
(2) VIDEO GAMES CAN BE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH
(3) WE SHOULD RECONSIDER OUR STRATEGY FOR TREATING DEPRESSION, SAY EXPERTS
(1) BEING SMART DOESN'T GUARANTEE HAPPINESS IN OLD AGE
(Lifetime intellectual function and satisfaction with life in old age: longitudinal cohort study)
bmj.com/cgi/content/full/331/7509/141
Happiness in old age is not linked to intelligence over a lifetime, say researchers in this week's BMJ.
Their study involved 550 healthy people who were born in Scotland in 1921, and who were tested for cognitive (mental) ability at 11 and again at about 80 years old.
Test scores were converted to IQs and adjusted for age. Participants also completed a satisfaction with life scale at age 80.
Satisfaction with life in old age was unrelated to cognitive ability and to cognitive change throughout life. This could be due to the fact that, among healthy people, higher ability is equally likely to lead to positive as well as negative outcomes, explain the authors.
They suggest that, in promoting successful ageing, it is necessary to know not only what protects cognition but also what predicts happiness.
Professor Ian Deary said: ?If you are 80 and healthy, then your satisfaction with how your life has turned out bears no relation to how you scored on an IQ test recently or 70 years ago?
Contact:
Katrina Nevin-Ridley, Press & PR Manager, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Email: katrina.nevin-ridley@ed.ac.uk
(2) VIDEO GAMES CAN BE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH
(Editorial: Video games and health)
bmj.com/cgi/content/full/331/7509/122
Video games can be useful in health care and research into their effects deserves to be taken seriously, argues an expert in this week's BMJ.
One innovative application of video games in health care is their use in pain management as the degree of attention needed to play such a game can distract the player from the sensation of pain, writes Mark Griffiths, Professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University.
Video games can also provide cognitive (mental) distraction for children during chemotherapy, and have been used as a form of physiotherapy or to help develop social and spatial ability skills in many different groups of people.
However, there is also a growing body of evidence highlighting the more negative aspects of play, particularly on children and adolescents. These include the risk of video game addiction and increased aggressiveness.
Other adverse effects, such as auditory hallucinations, repetitive strain injuries, and obesity have also been reported, but firm evidence is lacking.
On balance, there is little evidence that moderate frequency of play has serious adverse effects, but more evidence is needed on excessive play and on defining what constitutes excess in the first place, says the author.
There should also be long term studies of the course of videogame addiction, he concludes.
Contact:
Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Department of Social Sciences, Nottingham
Trent University, UK
Tel: +44 (0)115 848 5528
Email: mark.griffiths@ntu.ac.uk
(3) WE SHOULD RECONSIDER OUR STRATEGY FOR TREATING DEPRESSION, SAY EXPERTS
(Efficacy of antidepressants in adults)
bmj.com/cgi/content/full/331/7509/155
Current recommendations for prescribing antidepressants should be reconsidered, argue mental health experts in this week's BMJ.
Most people with depression are initially treated with antidepressants, and prescribing has risen by 253% in 10 years. Yet recent studies show that SSRIs have no clinically meaningful advantage over placebo, write Joanna Moncrieff and Irving Kirsch.
Furthermore, claims that antidepressants are more effective in more severe conditions is not strong, while data on long term outcome of depression and suicide do not provide convincing evidence of benefit.
All this implies the need for a thorough re-evaluation of current approaches to depression and further development of alternatives to drug treatment, say the authors.
Since antidepressants have become society's main response to distress, expectations raised by decades of their use will also need to be addressed, they conclude.
Contacts:
Joanna Moncrieff, Senior Lecturer in Social and Community Psychiatry, Department of mental health Sciences, University College
London, UK
Email: j.moncrieff@ucl.ac.uk
or
Irving Kirsch, Professor of Psychology, School of Applied Psychosocial Studies, University of Plymouth, UK
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