The Association Between Interpersonal Violence and Unstable Housing Among Veterans.

Despite programs to address housing for Veterans, they continue to be at high risk of unstable housing. Interpersonal violence is also highly prevalent among Veterans and may contribute to unstable housing. Our study aimed to determine whether interpersonal violence was associated with unstable housing among Veterans, and how this association was influenced by common co-occurring conditions such as substance use and mental illness. Veterans in the Mind Your Heart Study (N = 741) completed survey data on history of interpersonal violence and access to housing in the prior year. Interpersonal violence was defined as experiencing sexual violence, physical violence, or mugging/physical attack using the Brief Trauma Questionnaire. Multivariable models examined associations between interpersonal violence and unstable housing. Primary models were adjusted for age and sex. Potential explanatory factors were added in subsequent models, including marital status, education, income, substance use disorder, PTSD, and other mental illness. Veterans who had experienced interpersonal violence had almost twice the odds of unstable housing after adjustment for age and sex (AOR 1.9, 95% CI 1.2-3.0). This association was attenuated in the fully adjusted model including substance use, PTSD, and other mental illness, illustrating the interdependence of these factors (AOR 1.5, 95% CI 0.91-2.5). Subtypes of interpersonal violence were individually associated with increased odds of unstable housing after adjustment for age and sex (physical abuse AOR 1.7, 95% CI 1.2-2.5; mugging/physical attack AOR 1.8, 95% CI 1.2-2.7; sexual violence AOR 1.4, 95% CI 0.89-2.2), but were no longer significant in the fully adjusted model. Previous experiences of interpersonal violence were associated with unstable housing among Veterans. Substance use, PTSD, and other mental illness played an important role in this relationship-highlighting the potential to improve health outcomes through trauma informed approaches that address mental health, substance use, and housing concurrently

Addressing Intimate Partner Violence with Male Patients: A Review and Introduction of Pilot Guidelines

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a common and devastating problem affecting the health of women, men, and children. Most health-care research focuses on the effects of IPV on women and children and addressing IPV with women in the health-care setting. Less is known about addressing IPV with men in the health-care setting. This article reviews the challenges in interpreting research on IPV in men, its prevalence and health effects in men, and the arguments for addressing IPV with men in the health-care setting. It introduces pilot guidelines that are based on the existing literature and expert opinion

The role of working memory and attentional disengagement on inhibitory control:effects of aging and Alzheimer's disease

Patients with Alzheimer's disease have an impairment of inhibitory control for reasons that are currently unclear. Using an eye-tracking task (the gap-overlap paradigm), we examined whether the uncorrected errors relate to the task of attentional disengagement in preparation for action. Alternatively, the difficulty in correcting for errors may be caused by the working memory representation of the task. A major aim of this study was to distinguish between the effects of healthy aging and neurodegenerative disease on the voluntary control of saccadic eye movements. Using the antisaccade task (AST) and pro-saccade task (PST) with the 'gap' and 'overlap' procedures, we obtained detailed eye-tracking measures in patients, with 18 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease, 25 patients with Parkinson's disease and 17 healthy young and 18 old participants. Uncorrected errors in the AST were selectively increased in Alzheimer's disease, but not in Parkinson's disease compared to the control groups. These uncorrected errors were strongly correlated with spatial working memory. There was an increase in the saccade reaction times to targets that were presented simultaneously with the fixation stimulus, compared to the removal of fixation. This 'gap' effect (i.e. overlap-gap) saccade reaction time was elevated in the older groups compared to young group, which yielded a strong effect of aging and no specific effect of neurodegenerative disease. Healthy aging, rather than neurodegenerative disease, accounted for the increase in the saccade reaction times to the target that are presented simultaneously with a fixation stimulus. These results suggest that the impairment of inhibitory control in the AST may provide a convenient and putative mark of working memory dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease