Harvard Mental Health Letter: September 2008

Schools seeking to prevent or reduce violence are using screening tools to identify students who may be suffering from depression. The goal is to create an environment where students feel they are connected to the school community.

People with a psychiatric condition are more likely to be smokers. Treatment tends to be more aggressive, and they may have to take smoking-cessation medication in higher doses, and for longer periods of time, for it to be successful.

Adults who experience the death of a sibling often find that their loss is minimized by others, which may cause them to suppress their grief. Survivors should seek out a grief partner for emotional support.

Elderly patients with dementia who were exposed to bright light for several hours each day showed a slight improvement in symptoms.

A series of experiments found that people who spent money on others were happier than those who spent it on themselves.

Research on social connections and aging finds that older people with a large, active social network are more likely to retain their cognitive functioning, and less lilely to develop dementia.