The overall amputation rate in northern Illinois is declining due to improved care for diabetes and peripheral vascular disease, new research shows.

For U.S. veterans with diabetes, lower scores on a test of mental health functioning are associated with an increased risk of major amputations, reports a study in the November/December issue of the journal General Hospital Psychiatry.

Researchers at Scholl College's Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR) at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, Leiden University in the Netherlands, and Texas A&M University have presented important new information that could help physicians and their patients predict dangerous recurrent wounds that precede amputations in persons with diabetes.