The search for a treatment of tardive dyskinesia has generally been guided by the putative biochemical mechanisms underlying the extrapyramidal disorders, but no markedly effective treatment has yet been found. The currently postulated mechanism in tardive dyskinesia involves namely an imbalance between the central dopamine-acetylcholine systems whose balance may also be influenced by neuroendocrine factors. The agents reported having some clinical efficacy in the management of this neurological complication act on these systems. The clinical investigation for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia is laborious and raises several problems that could account for the unpredictability and the discrepancies in results. These problems can be divided into three broad categories: patient variables, experimental treatment variables and methodological variables. These variables are discussed and some suggestions made.
Case records of ninety consecutive first lifetime admissions with a hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia were examined for Schneiderian first rank symptoms, the Feighner diagnostic criteria, and the New Haven Schizophrenia Index. Diagnostic exclusion criteria were developed and applied. It is concluded that the hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia is likely to be too broad. Each diagnostic system can increase accuracy of diagnosis, but their exclusion criteria are too vague and the system would be improved by using those given here. Each diagnostic system selects similar groups of patients, and can be applied retrospectively to adequate case records.
University students of the late 1960s and 1970s have been included in a study of factors affecting their mental health and academic functioning in many countries and cultures. Social change and intergenerational conflict were seen to be almost inseparable as social, economic and political concerns involve both students and their countries. Results of studies at Dalhousie University, six British universities, and the University of Singapore are examined in light of the socioeconomic problems existing at the time. High unemployment of university graduates, a growing factor in developing and developed nations, is pointed to as a major stress during a university education in the late 1970s.