Psychiatric Times Vol 25 No 11

Medication adherence, especially in children and adolescents, is a complex problem that is poorly understood and underresearched, yet it is a clear barrier to effective treatment and is frequently encountered in everyday clinical practice.

Reducing complex human experiences into a psychiatric diagnosis can be a daunting task. For children with developmental disorders, this process is even more complicated and requires distilling often incomplete and frequently contradictory scientific evidence.

In an earlier column (Psychiatric Times, “The Road Less Traveled,” September 2002, page 14), I emphasized what can be learned from interviewing nonclinical subjects.

When I was recently asked by a patient about the link between osteoporosis and SSRIs, I dimly recalled this topic’s emergence in a medical journal in 2007, its subsequent meander through several newsletters, and its gradual return to the bottom of my mental risk-assessment checklist.

Commercially available telephone sex with women has been available at all hours of the day or night for over 25 years to anyone who pays the fee.

When most people think of bullying, they envision the schoolyard thug verbally or physically threatening hapless victims on the playground or on the school bus. The past few years, however, have witnessed a new type of bullying-cyber bullying-also known as electronic bullying or online social cruelty.

In the new century, the dementias will probably become 1 of the 2 or 3 dominant behavioral health problems in the United States. This article provides an overview of the major clinical features of these cognitive loss syndromes and emphasizes the perspective of the practicing psychiatrist.

As a licensed acupuncturist, I am often asked by both medical professionals and laypersons whether acupuncture actually “works” and whether it should really be considered part of a belief system rather than science.

The use of antipsychotics to quiet agitated older adults with dementia has come under increasing fire. After a Canadian study demonstrated an increased risk of adverse events or death with these agents,1 the FDA expanded its earlier warning to physicians.

Neuroimaging is often used in clinical psychiatry to rule out medical and neurological conditions that can mimic psychiatric disease rather than for the diagnosis of specific psychiatric disorders.

William Bruce, a young man with symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, was released from Maine’s state-run Riverview Psychiatric Center in April, 2006. Two months later, he killed his mother with a hatchet. Bruce subsequently was found not criminally responsible by reason of insanity and was recommitted to Riverview.

We need to have a framework to make certain that our interventions are balanced, safe, and a function of the existing evidence.

Participants in past meetings of the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (PDAC) think changes to FDA advisory committee procedures announced in August will add credibility to those committee votes.

Two recent studies on the treatment of depression in children and adolescents will help guide clinicians’ treatment decisions.

Adolescents who present with symptoms that suggest a psychotic disorder pose a number of diagnostic and treatment challenges. This article attempts to provide a practical guide to the assessment and management of adolescents with severe psychotic illness, including schizophrenia, schizophrenia-like disorders, and bipolar disorder.