THE NUMBER OF MEN developing metastatic prostate cancer is increasing rapidly, research published in 2016 in the journal Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases suggests. The number of new cases of metastatic, or stage 4, prostate cancer shot up 72 percent between 2004 and 2013, according to the Northwestern Medicine study. Overall, one in nine men in the U.S. will develop prostate cancer during his lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. While the five-year survival rate for men with early-stage prostate cancer is nearly 100 percent, the numbers are far worse for those with a metastatic form of the disease. About two-thirds of men with metastatic prostate cancer succumb to it within five years of their diagnosis, says Dr. Sean Cavanaugh, the radiation oncology director of the CTCA Genitourinary Cancer Institute in Atlanta.

Why? When our environment is unkempt, anxiety can bleed into other parts of our lives, making us feel badly about ourselves. Researchers have known for years that being around clutter can raise stress levels, especially among women — who can find it difficult to manage and organize their family’s possessions. Inger Burnett-Zeigler, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said a disorganized environment is a constant visual reminder of things left undone. It can make people feel “like they’re overwhelmed, and their life is out of control and in chaos.” On the flip side, studies show that women who see their homes as restorative feel less depressed throughout the day. Having order and simplicity in your space can free up your mind.

Lurie Children’s Hospital is opening a 20-bed ward for patients who are too sick for general inpatient care but don’t need an intensive-care unit. The intermediate-care unit is set to open Feb. 22 at the Streeterville hospital. It will have a staff of about 75, and the average length of stay for patients will be 36 to 72 hours, compared with 24 to 36 hours on Lurie’s general inpatient floors. Intermediate-care units, also called step-down and transitional-care units, have been around for decades, but hospitals use the model in a variety of ways.

Scientists are trying to understand how genes and hormones play a role in perinatal depression, knowledge that could eventually help predict which women might develop it. “We don’t have a good screening tool specifically for identifying people at risk for perinatal depression,” said Dr. Melissa Simon, a panel member who is vice chairwoman of research at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine’s obstetrics and gynecology department. “We need a tool.”