Mental Health

Hoag Hospital officials are announcing plans for a center at the Newport Beach campus that will “pioneer new, whole family-centered approaches to brain health and healthy aging.” A “transformational” $50 million gift from Newport Beach philanthropist Richard Pickup is helping establish the center, which will not only work on research and to improve gaps in care for … Read More

The secrets of the human brain are being unlocked at an exciting pace. We now have the first FDA-approved medication to fundamentally alter the biology of Alzheimer’s disease. In the next decade, it’s possible we will have vaccines to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by decades. While pharmaceutical research opens an incredible new future for … Read More

Small, everyday forgetfulness – not remembering why you walked into a room or not being able to find your phone – may seem to many like the normal process of aging. However, these lapses can sometimes be symptomatic of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which itself can be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease. Since it’s considered normal by … Read More

With the rise in Alzheimer’s disease in Orange County over the last decade, there is a good chance your family has been touched by dementia or mild cognitive decline. Alzheimer’s Orange County recently estimated that the number of people facing dementia has nearly doubled since 2014 locally, from 84,000 to 164,000 people. “The new data … Read More

During a webinar presented by mental health experts from Hoag Hospital’s ASPIRE program to CUSD families, a child psychiatrist shared some recently released statistics on child mental health issues. Dr. Sina Safahieh, a double-board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist and medical director of the ASPIRE Program at Hoag in Newport Beach and Irvine, said … Read More

By Matthew Reed, M.D. | Hoag Hospital’s Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute More than car accidents. More than suicide. More than gun violence. Fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death for people ages 18-49, a startling fact that prompted the Food and Drug Administration to approve naloxone (commonly known as Narcan) for over-the-counter sales in … Read More

If you want to know whether a standard-of-care medication will work to treat your depression, flip a coin. More than half of all patients treated for major depressive disorder (MDD), the clinical name for what is typically thought of as depression, don’t respond to the first treatment option prescribed to them. Even those who do … Read More

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, M.D., recently outlined a national framework to combat the loneliness epidemic in the United States. He noted four important facts about loneliness and social isolation: Being lonely is as bad for your long-term health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day! People who are lonely are 26% more likely to die … Read More

Want to look 19 years younger than you are? Sorry. This isn’t a story about that. But you can make your brain appear nearly two decades more youthful simply by following a Mediterranean diet. A new study published in the journal Neurology, looked at the brains of 581 people who donated their bodies to science. … Read More