Psychiatry (Edgmont (Pa. : Township))最新文献

In this article, we explore the accelerated penetration of generic antidepressants in the United States market following the availability of generic citalopram and sertraline. Analysis suggests that overall, generic penetration into the antidepressant market has grown from approximately 41 percent in January 2004 to over 73 percent in January 2010. Similar trends are uncovered when branded and generic prescriptions are analyzed by specialty.

Current evidence indicates that chronically disrupted sleep in children and adolescents can lead to problems in cognitive functioning. Behavioral interventions for pediatric sleep problems (e.g., graduated extinction, parent education, positive bedtime routines), especially in young children, have been shown to produce clinically significant improvements. This review describes a few pertinent conditions of sleep disorders in children and adolescents as well as provides clinically useful approaches to sleep complaints and both pharmacologic and nonpharmacological treatments of some common pediatric sleep disorders.

The mental status examination is the objective portion of any comprehensive psychiatric assessment and has key diagnostic and treatment implications. This includes elements such as a patient's baseline general appearance and behavior, affect, eye contact, and psychomotor functioning. Changes in these parameters from session to session allow the psychiatrist to gather important information about the patient. In psychiatry, much emphasis is placed on not only listening to what patients communicate verbally but also observing their interactions with the environment and the psychiatrist. In a complimentary fashion, psychiatrists must be aware of their own nonverbal behaviors and communication, as these can serve to either facilitate or hinder the patient-physician interaction. In this article, clinical vignettes will be used to illustrate various aspects of nonverbal communication that may occur within the setting of psychotherapy. Being aware of these unspoken subtleties can offer a psychiatrist valuable information that a patient may be unwilling or unable to put into words.

Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital is the oldest hospital in China that specializes in psychiatry. Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital plays a crucial role in mental healthcare in southern China. This article briefly discusses the general characteristics of Guangzhou Psychiatric Hospital.

Stimulant and antipsychotic medications are commonly used together without concern, despite their potentially opposing mechanisms. An examination of dopamine pathways and receptors suggests that concerns regarding interactions between these two classes are justified and relevant. Efficacy of concurrent use is reviewed for several indications, with a focus on comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and aggression. The risk of adverse reactions is examined. Complex dopamine mechanisms are considered to explain the dilemma, and general treatment guidelines for stimulant-antipsychotic concurrent use are discussed.

The Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia Research process has led to several developments in the assessment of cognitive functioning for schizophrenia-treatment studies. The first development was the development of a consensus cognitive battery and a United States Food and Drug Administration-endorsed research design. Since the development of the cognitive battery, interest has been spurred in clinical trials in different countries and the development of co-primary functional outcomes measures for these. The MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery has been translated into 11 different languages and is being translated into even more. A study has been completed that compared the usefulness of multiple potential co-primary measures, suggesting that the University of California San Diego Performance-Based skills assessment, version II (UPSA-II) is the most suitable for studies conducted in English. These findings suggest that reliable performance-based measures that are easy to administer and highly correlated with cognitive functioning are now available for use in treatment studies.

Psychiatrists face many difficult ethical decisions in which they must exercise their discretion. In the most difficult decisions they confront, there are significant "harms," regardless of what they choose. The best they can do in these instance is to be as acutely aware of the most important pros and cons as they can. This article will discuss such pros and cons in regard to, particularly, informing patients when they may be dangerous to themselves or others, have dementia, and have genetic illness. This article will also discuss giving moral weight to the psychiatrist's own interests when making these ethical decisions.

Objective: To investigate the safety of rechallenge with lamotrigine after an initial rash in patients with refractory bipolar depression.

Design: 1) Prospective, open-label case series in a private practice setting. Patients who developed an initial rash on lamotrigine and were refractory to other treatments were offered rechallenge with the drug using very-low-dose titration (5mg every other day or daily for 14 days, then raised every 14 days by daily-dose increments of 5mg; after 25mg/day the titration proceeded according to the manufacturer's guidelines); and 2) A meta-analysis of prior reports of rechallenge with lamotrigine was conducted.

Measures: A rating scale for rash severity was developed for this study.

Results: Of 27 patients rechallenged with lamotrigine, five required discontinuation due to rash or inflammation. Two of these were potentially serious and all resolved with discontinuation of lamotrigine. Review of the literature identified 48 cases of lamotrigine rechallenge with a success rate of 87 percent; in pooled analysis with the current study the success rate was 85 percent. No patients developed Stevens-Johnson syndrome or toxic epidermal necrolysis after rechallenge. The rate of rash was elevated when rechallenge began within four weeks of the initial rash (36% vs. 7%, p=0.002) and reduced when the initial rash had no signs of potential seriousness (0% vs. 23%, p=0.01).

Conclusions: Rechallenge is a viable option after a benign rash on lamotrigine and can be undertaken with more caution after rashes with 1 to 2 signs of potential seriousness. For rashes with three or more signs of seriousness, rechallenge is not well-studied and may carry significant risk. Rechallenge should be avoided within four weeks of the initial rash.