Developing evidence-based standards for diagnosis and management of lower urinary tract or pelvic floor dysfunction

The International Continence Society (ICS) has a key role in standardizing terminology related to lower urinary tract and pelvic organ dysfunction. The ICS Standardization Steering Committee (SSC) presents the new structure and process by which future ICS Standards will be developed. The new processes aim to meet present-day evidence-based practice requirements, and to foster unbiased, inclusive, and transparent development. For each new ICS Standard, the SSC will oversee a dedicated ad hoc Working Group (WG). Applications to chair or contribute to a WG will be invited from the ICS membership. The SSC will select the Chairperson, and work with him or her to select the WG composition, balanced to represent key disciplines, stakeholders, and regions. Consultants can be invited to contribute to the WG where specific need arises. Every WG will review current knowledge, adhering to evidence-based medicine requirements. Progress reports will be reviewed by the SSC, and amendments recommended, culminating in a first draft. The draft will be offered to the ICS membership and additional relevant experts for comment. Further revision, if needed, will result in a document, which the SSC will submit to the ICS Trustees, as arbiters of whether the document should be adopted as an ICS Standard. The SCC will then coordinate with the WG to ensure that the new ICS Standard is published and disseminated. Implementation strategies, such as education, audit, accreditation, and research initiatives will be linked to the Standards where appropriate. Revisions of ICS Standards will be undertaken to maintain contemporaneous relevance.     

Somatic Care with a Psychotic Disorder. Lower Somatic Health Care Utilization of Patients with a Psychotic Disorder Compared to Other Patient Groups and to Controls Without a Psychiatric Diagnosis

Patients with non-affective psychotic disorders (NAPD) face higher risk of somatic problems and early natural death compared to the general population. Therefore, treatment guidelines for schizophrenia and psychosis stress the importance of monitoring somatic risk factors. This study examined somatic Health Care utilization (HCu) of patients with NAPD compared to non-psychiatric controls and patients with depression, anxiety or bipolar disorders using a large Health Insurance database. Results show lower specialist somatic HCu of patients with NAPD compared to matched controls and also lower percentages for prescribed somatic medication and general practitioner consultations for patients aged ≥60 years and after longer illness duration.     

“Distressed aging”: the differences in brain activity between early- and late-onset tinnitus

Recent findings regarding different characteristics according to the age of tinnitus onset prompted us to conduct a study on the differences in tinnitus-related neural correlates between late-onset tinnitus (LOT; mean onset age, 60.4 years) and early-onset tinnitus (EOT; mean onset age, 29.7 years) groups. Hence, we collected quantitative electroencephalography findings of 29 participants with LOT and 30 with EOT, and from 59 controls. We then compared the results between the 2 groups and between the tinnitus groups and age- and sex-matched control groups using resting state electroencephalography source-localized activity and connectivity analyses. Compared with the EOT and older control groups, the LOT group demonstrated increased localized activity and functional connectivity in components of previously described tinnitus distress networks, and the default mode and intrinsic alertness networks, such as the prefrontal cortices, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and insula. The current findings of intrinsic differences in tinnitus-related neural activity between the LOT and EOT groups might be applicable for planning individualized treatment modalities according to age of onset. Moreover, differences with regard to the age of tinnitus onset might be a milestone for future studies on onset-related differences in other similar pathologies, such as pain or depression.     

Bigger is better! Hippocampal volume and declarative memory performance in healthy young men

The importance of the hippocampus for declarative memory processes is firmly established. Nevertheless, the issue of a correlation between declarative memory performance and hippocampal volume in healthy subjects still remains controversial. The aim of the present study was to investigate this relationship in more detail. For this purpose, 50 healthy young male participants performed the California Verbal Learning Test. Hippocampal volume was assessed by manual segmentation of high-resolution 3D magnetic resonance images. We found a significant positive correlation between putatively hippocampus-dependent memory measures like short-delay retention, long-delay retention and discriminability and percent hippocampal volume. No significant correlation with measures related to executive processes was found. In addition, percent amygdala volume was not related to any of these measures. Our data advance previous findings reported in studies of brain-damaged individuals in a large and homogeneous young healthy sample and are important for theories on the neural basis of episodic memory.