Minerva

To see if acupressure would reduce anxiety before undergoing an endoscopy procedure, 52 children participated in a trial of acupressure at the “Extra-1” (Yin-Tang) point and at a sham point. Thirty minutes after the intervention, the children in the Extra-1 group had less anxiety than at baseline, and those in the sham group had more. But Extra-1 acupressure didn’t affect propofol requirements during the procedure (Anesthesia & Analgesia 2008;107:811-6, doi:10.1213/ane.0b013e3181804441).

Is the depression induced by bereavement similar to depression associated with other stressful life events, or is it appropriate to give it special status? A comparison of 82 people with confirmed depression related to bereavement and 224 with confirmed depression related to other important life events found that the similarities between the two groups substantially outweighed any differences. This raises the question of whether diagnostic criteria for depression should exclude bereavement (American Journal of Psychiatry online 15 August 2008, doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2008.07111757).

When lung tissue is traumatised by the dissection of interlobar fissures during pulmonary lobectomy, the resulting air leakages are tricky …