May 7th 2024
Advocating for the human rights of your older patients is an important part of clinical geriatric psychiatry. Learn more in this APA Annual Meeting session!
As I lie in my hospital bed, attempting to breathe through my trach tube at a normal rate, waiting for my morning medication, and hoping to hear good, or at least manageable, results from my doctors when they come to me on rounds, my mind wanders. Despite the precariousness of my situation, I can’t help but smile as I think of my now monthly psychotherapy sessions.
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Psychosocial Interventions for Depressed Older Adults With Cognitive Impairment and Disability
September 15th 2010Depression, cognitive impairment, and disability often coexist in older adults. Therefore, to effectively treat late-life depression, clinicians need to evaluate the presence and degree of the patient’s cognitive deficits and level of disability.
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Handbook of Correctional Mental Health, Second Edition
August 12th 2010With the transition of patients with mental illness from the beds of psychiatric institutions into the community the need for knowledgeable mental health professionals continues to grow. Correctional psychiatry has evolved in recent years and presents special challenges for clinicians, which this handbook deftly addresses. Contributing authors with various backgrounds provide a broad range of expertise.
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Who Should Care About Geriatric Mental Health? Check the Mirror . . .
August 4th 2010Who should care about aging? This question is particularly germane in mental health. The articles in this Special Report remind us of the importance of understanding and focusing on the stresses, problems, and treatment-related issues in this population.
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Alzheimer’s Disease Without Dis-ease? New Conundrums for Psychiatric Diagnosis and Public Health
July 19th 2010Researchers who have spent their careers studying schizophrenia and mood disorders might be forgiven a bit of “biomarker envy.” At long last, it seems that the neurologists and neuropsychiatrists have developed some fairly sensitive and specific “lab tests” for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).
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Psychiatrists, Physicians, and the Prescriptive Bond
April 16th 2010Almost the first memory I have of a physician is our family doctor at my bedside, leaning over to press his warm fingers against my neck and beneath my jaw. I’m 5, maybe 6 years old. I have a fever and a sore throat, and Dr Gerace is carefully palpating my cervical and submandibular lymph nodes. In my family, Dr Gerace’s opinion carried a lot of weight. It was the 1950s, and my mother did not quite trust those new-fangled antibiotics. She usually tried to haggle with the doctor over the dose-“Can’t the boy take just half that much?”-but even my mother would ultimately bow to Dr Gerace’s considered opinion.
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Are FDA Warnings on Antipsychotics Heeded?
April 7th 2010The impact of FDA alerts and label warnings was examined in 2 recently published studies of antipsychotic drug use. In one study, researchers gauged physician response to the 2005 warning of increased mortality with antipsychotic use in elderly patients with dementia, and in the other study, researchers determined whether recommended safeguards were implemented following the 2003 advisories on adverse metabolic effects of second-generation antipsychotics.
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“Prescribing Psychologists:” Practicing Medicine without a License?
March 30th 2010Dateline: Portland, Oregon, April, 2011[From the office notes of Prescribing Psychologist, R.X. Sciolus, PhD]“Ms Malfortuna is a 60-year-old white female with a recent history of significant depressive symptoms, including insomnia, poor appetite, decreased energy, anhedonia, and lack of motivation. . .
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The Blue Mask: Uncovering the Cause of the Nightmare
February 22nd 2010Mr V had appeared at our appointment in a panic, after an episode of premature ventricular contractions and a terrifying nightmare. In the dream, he was threatened by a blue, masklike face with white circles for eyes and 2 slits for a nose.
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A Serious Man-a film that explores their Jewish roots in Minnesota. Not roots in the genealogical or autobiographical sense but from a removed and more philosophical perspective-what does it mean to be a Jew, both as a matter of social identity and as someone who is supposed to believe in God or Hashem, the word religious Jews invoke so as not to take the name of the Lord in vain. Hashem will roll so glibly off the tongues of the Coens’ Jews, it will seem more like affectation than piety.
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Medical Decision-Making Capacity of Patients With Dementia
December 14th 2009The United States Census Bureau projects that by 2010 nearly 13% of the US population will be over the age of 65. The elderly are one of the most rapidly growing segments of the US population and are expected to account for more than 20% of the total population by 2050.1 In 2001, the prevalence of dementia in North America was 6.4%. A 49% increase in the number of people with dementia is expected by 2020, and a 172% increase by 2040.2 Patients with dementia may lack the capacity to consent to treatment. The need to evaluate capacity to consent to treatment will therefore increase as the aging population grows.
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Focus on Pharmacotherapy Studies in the Elderly
November 23rd 2009The NIMH-sponsored New Clinical Drugs Evaluation Unit (NCDEU) meeting is a favored venue for reports and reviews of NIH-funded psychopharmacological studies, and this was true of the recent annual meeting in Hollywood, Fla. The meeting included a workshop on new investigations of antidepressant use in Alzheimer disease and a panel session on the safety of pharmacotherapy in older adults.
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